Once Upon a Moonless Dark: A Once Upon a Time Variation
by LA Knight
Summary: A desperate race to reach an Elven prince. What if Dylan had never found out about Nuada's so-called trial? What if he remained unrescued? What if a madman didn't intend to kill Nuada until he could seek proper revenge? What if two very special children were weighed in the balance? How would everything change? A variation of the Nuada fic Once Upon a Time that starts at ch10.
1. The Darkness Between the Stars

_**At the Bottom of This Chapter:**_

_Author's Note__  
__Concerning the Chapter Title_

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_**WARNING:**__ this fic CANNOT be read without reading the first_ **10** _chapters of my_ Hellboy _fanfic_, Once Upon a Time. _So no one complain to me about not knowing what's going on or whatever if you haven't done that._

_**Author's Note:**__ firstly, here's the deal. I love my fanfic_, Once Upon a Time. _I love it. BUT. I love angst, drama, darkness, grief, and agony, too. Unfortunately, I can only have so much darkness in_ Once _because my beta doesn't like dark stuff. I do. And my love of darkness keeps trying to push_ Once _into weird places, so I'm trying to fuel all of my darkness into this fic instead. Hopefully it works. Hopefully you enjoy it. So this is a_ Once Upon a Time Variation, _just like_ Once Upon a Winter's Night.

_See, I started reading these novels by this chick named Abigail Reynolds, variations on_ Pride and Prejudice, _and it really sparked my imagination. So did Alydia Rackham, who writes fanfiction for_ The Avengers. _She's got 3 different Lokane (Loki/Jane) fics that are basically "What if Loki fell off the Bifrost and was wounded and met Jane?"/"What if Loki fell off the Bifrost and was seriously wounded and met Jane?"/"What if Loki fell off the Bifrost and got captured by the Chitauri and then met Jane sometime later?" All three of which hinge on "What if something different happened when Loki fell off the Bifrost."_

_What's my point? I came up with the idea of doing a variation chap-fic, and that's what this is. It starts off in the middle of chapter 10, and it begs the question - what if Dylan hadn't found out about Nuada's so-called trial? And what if instead of trying to kill Nuada, Eamonn was merely attempting to get revenge on him for his so-called betrayal of the fae cause?_

_I hope you enjoy this_ Once Upon a Time _variation. OH! And the chapters will hopefully be shorter than the normal Once chapters, for those of you who are gasping to death under the sheer volume of words in the original_ Once Upon a Time. _Hugs and love to you all!_

_Oh, and secondly, this chapter is sort of a condensed version of relevant bits of chapter 10 and 11, with some new stuff that's changed in this variation. Everything after this chapter is new_. =)

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_**Once Upon a Moonless Dark**_

**Chapter One****  
****The Darkness Between the Stars**

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_I am taking you home_, he'd said. And so he did. In a silent sojourn through back alleys and the strangely empty darkness of Central Park, Nuada had been a somber shadow beside her as the Elven warrior took her back to her cottage. Glamour kept anyone from seeing them; convenient, that, since her clothes were spattered with blood.

When they arrived at the cottage, Dylan simply stopped and pressed her forehead to the cool stone door. Summer still held sway in New York City, and the gentle chill of the smooth granite pushed back the prickling heat a little. She just had to stop. Her leg ached abominably from the rapid dash through the subway to find Nuada and protect the halfling baby she'd somehow managed to rescue. Sweat dampened the back of her tunic. Terror still breathed hot against the back of her neck. That Elf, Eamonn, had killed a pregnant mortal and her faerie husband just to somehow set Nuada up. That knowledge left a revolting taste in Dylan's mouth.

A gentle touch on her shoulder made her jump. She glanced over her shoulder at Nuada, who stood in the barely-there light of a waning crescent moon. Fear surged up in her throat and tried to catch her in a strangling grip. She suddenly wanted to fling herself into Nuada's arms and cling to him as she had when she'd found him in the subway…but if she did that, he'd be furious. Dylan knew she didn't dare.

"Thank you for escorting me," she whispered. He inclined his head in that simple, regal gesture she was so familiar with from the months spent in his underground sanctuary and in her cottage. And yet…why didn't he speak?

Dylan unlocked the door and gestured for Nuada to come in, but he shook his head and started to turn away. She must've made some sound, though, because he paused and looked back at her.

"Be careful," she said. "Please be careful, Your Highness."

He looked away then. A cold shiver of dread whispered down Dylan's spine. Then Nuada left the cottage without a word, a silver-edged shadow in the night. Dylan stared at the open doorway where only a moment before the tall warrior had stood. The prince had been unwilling—unable?—to meet her eyes before vanishing. The mortal couldn't stop the sudden frisson of fear that shivered up her spine as she wondered if there were things about tonight that Nuada wasn't telling her.

Her little black kitten, Bat, stretched up on his hind legs, put his front paws on her good knee, and meowed loudly, startling her. Darn it, the wind was getting in while she stood woolgathering. The mortal shook her head and forced her feet to move. Dylan carefully shut the heavy granite door.

As the latch clicked, as she bolted the many locks, only two thoughts pulsed through her mind: _Be careful, Nuada._

_Heavenly Father... what do I do_ _now?_

**.**

A couple months passed, and Nuada did not return.

Dylan filled her days with patient appointments, counseling sessions at a teen's shelter and at the local juvenile detention center, late-afternoon dinner dates with John, a few awkward shopping trips with Francesca, sessions with her Sight-kids. Physical therapy, both with the mortal Dr. Vaughn and the narasimha healer, Lakshmi, to help combat the damage done in the long flight through the subway. Conversations with her friends, her sisters, and her cousins Dolph and Renee and trips to the library and a few of the local faires helped pass the time as well.

None of these things helped to ease the nervousness growing day by day, night by night. With every moonrise, Dylan's hope for seeing Nuada rose, only to plummet when he didn't come. She would wait for a knock at the door. Wait for that sudden sense of awareness that told her the Elven prince was there.

But in the end, he never came. The temperatures began to drop. The leaves changed from summer green to autumnal colors—russet and antique gold and orange, ruby and umber and gold as pale as winter sunlight. Frost crept across the ground. Eventually snow began drifting from skies pregnant with dove-gray clouds. And still he didn't come back.

Dylan always fell asleep curled up on the huge armchair in the living room, sucked into exhausting nightmares fueled by memories and worry for the Elven prince. She always woke in the middle of the night to the realization that another night had passed without word that the feral-eyed warrior was safe. Then Dylan would trudge to her room and fall asleep on her bed, struggling to ignore the growing fear skittering up and down her spine like insect legs.

She prayed for him, morning and night. Feared for him. What if that other Elf managed to hurt him? So she prayed for some word, some sign. There was nothing. She kept waiting. Kept praying. Kept fearing.

_Nuada,_ Dylan thought every night as she drifted off to sleep. _Nuada, where_ are _you?_

**.**

When the summons came, nearly three moons later, the Elven prince was almost grateful. For nearly three months he had stayed away from Dylan, even though she had promised to read him something called _Once Upon a Winter's Night_. The tale had sounded interesting, and the mortal's enthusiasm and affection for it had tempted him. But if King Balor's messenger were to somehow find Nuada in the home of the woman he supposedly sported with, it would only cause problems for him. Instead, he spent the now-empty nights training.

At last, only a few days ere Samhain, as he and Wink bowed to each other, sweat dampening flesh and silvery blond hair, the summons—and the charges laid at Nuada's feet—finally came.

_The Exiled Prince is commanded to return to Bethmoora, to the Golden Throne of Balor, the One-Armed King of Elfland, for trial on the charges of deviant cruelty toward, and the violent murder of mortals, as well the rapine of and conspiracy to murder another mortal._

Of course the king would see it that way. Nuada understood that. Glamouring a human or even another faerie into submitting to him and allowing him to bed her was rape according to the laws of the fae, and of course that could be the only way he would choose to bring a mortal to his bed—by trickery and deceit. And because he must, of course, have some sort of vile plan for this human that involved pain, torture, emotional distress, and eventually a bloody and agonizing death, that fell under "deviant cruelty" and "plotting to murder."

_Will you never think well of me, Father? _The words brought a cold fist of soul-pain slamming deep into his belly, though he gave no outward sign of it.

"My prince," Wink began, but one look from the Elf warrior silenced the burly troll.

"They will not kill me for this, Wink," the prince replied after a moment of tense silence. "Try to break me, yes. But they have tried before, and always they fail. I do not fear this trial."

"You need only tell them the truth—"

"The truth will avail me _nothing,"_ Nuada spat suddenly, and the nearly-mad fire of pain in his eyes burned like the molten gold heart of a star. "Nothing. I need only endure. It has always been enough. It will have to be enough now."

**.**

Wink paused outside the corridor that would lead to Balor's Hall. He glanced once at the strangely silent Elven prince at his side. Nuada only stared straight ahead, glacial topaz eyes locked on the vast double doors shrouded in shadow. Between the two warriors and the doors were several hidden Butcher Guards and, more than likely, that sycophantic little toad, the Lord Chamberlain.

"Both my heart and my feet are heavy at this parting, my prince," Wink grunted in the Troll Tongue. "Every instinct warns me of danger and hidden treachery."

"I know it," the prince replied in the same tongue. "Eamonn will do his best to see me shamed this night. I am prepared for him."

"Should we not have told…the human woman?" Something in the Elf's gaze warned Wink against using the mortal's name. "Surely she would come and defend you from these charges. She would tell your father the truth."

"The truth avails nothing in Balor's court anymore. Humanity's poison has oozed too deeply into our world and our people. And even if she _did _come…" But no human would ever do such a foolish thing. Not for one his people. Not even Dylan. And if she did… "They would say, as they have already said, that I use my Elf magic to beguile her, to enchant and deceive her. They would not believe her to be in her right mind. And besides, I was not given leave to bring her. To come before the king of Elfland without summons can be a death sentence, with no respect to mortality or magic, rank or status, unless the king gives his pardon. My honor prevents me from endangering her thus."

With a sigh, the burly troll glanced toward the moon cresting the horizon. As the last sliver of iridescent celestial orb glided above the horizon line, something icy settled over Nuada and he let out a breath.

"It is time. Goodbye, my friend. Wait for me as agreed."

Wink fought against the steps he wanted to take after Nuada, who strode slowly toward the double doors and the silent, waiting Butchers. Instead of following after his prince, he turned away and trudged back to the corridor where those not summoned who had an interest in the court proceedings were ordered to wait.

**.**

The doors to his father's hall swung inward. The rich, amber light caressed Nuada's face. Sweet scents and perfumes wafted on the sudden breezes. Soft, chiming music lilted on the air. And the Elven prince could not stop the leap his heart gave when he saw his father's face, nor the way it plummeted sickeningly into his belly when he saw the condemnation, anger and despair on the noble features. In fact, he saw himself condemned in every countenance that would look on him, save one.

Eamonn's eyes glinted with smug satisfaction as he watched Nuada approach without Wink, and without weapons.

_Dylan, _Nuada thought, surprising himself again. _She has never looked at me this way. Not even when I had her by the throat and meant to kill her. She never looked at me as if I were an animal, or a criminal. How strange that a human thinks more highly of me than my own kin._

"Bare your back, Crown Prince," King Balor commanded. Not Nuada. Not even Prince Nuada. Merely "Crown Prince." Nuada fought to kill the stab of grief biting deep into his belly. There was no emotion in the king's voice, in his ancient gaze, on his withered face. And Nuala still refused to look at her twin. Her usually moon-pale face was tinged a sickly gray in anticipation of the flogging, and her eyes were shadowed. She gave no other sign that she was even aware of what was happening.

Nuada refused to look away from his father's golden eyes as he withdrew a leather thong from his pocket and tied back the thick mane of his silvery blond hair in a horsetail. Then he carefully pulled off his black leather vest without breaking eye contact. Nuada would not give Eamonn the satisfaction of looking at the dark Elf to gauge the triumph and smug satisfaction on his face, or give Nuada's father the reprieve of conscience by not gazing indifferently at the old king. In his own eyes Nuada held reproach for what his father did to him, and for what his father was allowing to happen to Nuala. Balor could not continue meeting his son's eyes, and looked away.

He handed his vest to the pageboy who stood ready to take it. Drew off his tunic and shirt. Laid his silver-etched black leather vambraces atop the pile of clothing with tremendous dignity.

The prince drew a breath through his nose, blew it out slowly through his barely-parted black lips. Breathed carefully to keep his heart from stuttering at the thought of the whip slicing through flesh to find bone. He had been struck with a whip before, as a child and as a youth. Less often as an adult, but it had happened. Few other weapons of the Old World had ever hurt him so badly, and the healers had usually seen to him fairly soon afterward to mend those wounds. He still bore some of the scars to this day. But there would be no healers rushing to his aid this night. Only two thousand iron-tipped lashes, and the warm blood soaking his trews and running down his legs like water to pool at his feet. A delirium dream of pain and betrayal. A waking nightmare.

And there were the whipping posts. Such beauty in the silvery beams as thick as an Elf's calf and inlaid with gold-washed script in Old Gaelic. But Nuada knew the silvery sheen came from the burning iron, and the elegantly scripted Gaelic words were curses on those having their backs laid open by the whip. Iron chains reinforced with magic so that even he, the legendary Silverlance, could not break them, hung from the tops of the posts. It would burn when those shackles were clamped around his wrists.

He strode past the whispering courtiers, every step slow and measured. He never took his eyes from his father's empty countenance. He wanted to find Nuala's gaze – in the past, when he'd suffered a well-deserved strapping for disobedience, his sister's eyes had been all the comfort needed to make the pain and humiliation bearable. But he could not look away from Balor, and even if he had, Nuala would not have returned his gaze. There was no emotion from her now. Only a vast and nearly unbearable void, empty and cold, where warmth and love and peace should have been.

Nuada did not flinch when the shackles clicked shut around his wrists. Did not so much as bat an eyelash as the iron against his skin began to tingle, then itch, then burn. Even as the pain radiated up his forearms and he smelled the sickly meat stink of burning flesh, he showed nothing. He only stared at the One-Armed King of Elfland.

It was Eamonn – Eamonn, who had raised the charges against Nuada—who took up the whip with its thin, spiked iron tip. As accuser, it was Eamonn's right to determine who inflicted the prince's sentence. The Elven warrior knew that the dark Elf would never pass up the opportunity to do it himself.

Metal scraped across the inlaid marble floor as the dark-haired Elf moved into position. Nuada wanted to close his eyes, wanted to let his mind seek sanctuary in memories, but where would it go? Thoughts of his father, of Nuala, made his heart bleed as if from a wound. Thinking of Wink would only make him long for his friend and servant, long for the one who knew he had honor, knew he would never sully that honor with base acts of cruelty and evil. And he could not afford to long for anyone in this moment. He had to stand alone, or fall for all to see.

_I wish I had heard that story, _he surprised himself by thinking. Already his body was bracing for the brutal _crack_ of the whip. _The one Dylan wanted to read to me. "Once Upon a Winter's Night." Father will not allow me to go back to her. _He thought of silver-washed blue eyes scanning pages yellowed with age, and the scarred mouth forming the words as she read aloud before the fire_. I wish I could have heard just one more tale._ _I wish I could've had just one more night of peace._

Then the whip came down across his back. Nuala screamed.

And the whip came down again.

Again.

And again...

**.**

Dylan bolted upright in bed, choking on a scream. Coppery blood stung her mouth and she realized she'd sunk her teeth into her knuckles to bite back that terrified scream. What had she been dreaming? She couldn't remember. Something about Nuada…and Eamonn…and iron posts. A punishment. And blood. So much blood, the _drip-drip_ of it sprinkling a floor of gold-veined white marble. The same nightmare she'd had for the last two nights.

Nuada. Eamonn had whipped the flesh from his back. The sight of Nuada's ruined back left a scream clamoring in her mouth, desperate to be free. He'd hung from the iron chains circling his wrists, unable to keep on his feet. Had that only been a dream or had something terrible happened to him?

She threw back the sheets and swung her legs over the side of the bed. There was no chance of her sleeping now. Not after a nightmare like that. She'd go…read or something. Drink some hot chocolate in front of the living room fireplace. Hot chocolate had always helped her and John fall back asleep after bad dreams. Snagging a robe to wear over her nightgown, she tied the sash and left her room.

In the kitchen, she quickly set the milk to heating on the stove and pulled down the vanilla, cinnamon, and cocoa powder she'd need. It only took a few minutes to get the hot chocolate ready. She added a few French vanilla marshmallows—her special treat for herself on bad nights. Taking her cup, she went and sat in the suede armchair Nuada had often used when she'd read to him. Dylan closed her eyes, enjoying the crackling warmth of the fire, and sipped.

If it hadn't been for Eamonn, she wouldn't have been so afraid for the prince. Eamonn had butchered two people, and tried to kill an infant, in an attempt to lay some kind of blackmail trap for Nuada. At this point, Dylan wouldn't have put anything past the dark-haired Elf. He'd seemed to have a personal vendetta against Nuada.

_Why, though?_ Dylan wondered, taking another sip. The heat from the hearth easily penetrated the terrycloth bathrobe and the silky nightgown that had been a Christmas gift from her sister Francesca. _What could Nuada have done to him that made Eamonn hate him so much?_ The prince had even said that Eamonn had been trying to get Nuada into serious trouble for a long time. Considering Nuada was hundreds if not thousands of years old, a long time was probably a _really_ long time. _Why does Eamonn care if Nuada spends time with me?_

The clock on the mantel caught Dylan's gaze. How long had it been since she'd seen Nuada? Nearly three months. He'd vanished from her life again in the middle of August. Tonight was the night before Halloween. Almost November. Where _was_ he? Had Eamonn done something to him? Had Nuada actually gotten in trouble?

A sudden icy chill swept down her spine right as someone knocked on her door. Dylan's eyes flew to the door, then back to the clock. It was almost two in the morning. Who could be knocking on her door at two in the flipping…

_Nuada_.

The thought crystallized in her mind. Dylan was on her feet and half-racing, half-staggering to the door without a second thought. She checked the peephole and an electric jolt shot through to the very center of her pounding heart. With shaking hands she undid the locks and flung the door open. Without thinking, she threw her arms around the Elven prince.

"Oh, Nuada, you're safe. You're safe, you're safe. I thought Eamonn…I thought something had happened. Are you all right?" Dylan jerked back, realizing what she was doing. Shoving at her sleep-mussed hair, suddenly conscious of the way the lapels of her robe gaped a little because of her mad dash to the front door, she added, "I'm sorry, Your Highness. I didn't mean…I've just been so worried. I didn't hear from you and I thought Eamonn might've done something and I've just been sick with worrying about you. Are you all right?"

Nuada inclined his head. "I am fine. Eamonn did nothing to me, but I could not come sooner. I know it is quite late, but I knew you would worry." His gaze flicked to the doorway and those glacial topaz eyes lightened considerably. In the faint light coming through the open door, they looked almost gray. "May I come in?"

Dylan shook herself. "Oh, I'm so sorry. Please come in. Please." She stepped into the cottage, shivering from the late-autumn cold. She clutched at the lapels of her bathrobe and wondered what had possessed her to put on such a skimpy nightgown. Well, that had an obvious answer—her three flannel nightgowns and the rest of her decent pajamas were in the dirty clothes hamper. She'd have to wash them in the morning. Silk or fake silk or whatever this was didn't do anything for the cold without fuzzy socks and a thick robe.

The door slid closed behind her and another wash of cold air made her shiver harder. She couldn't wait to get back in front of the fire. Although Nuada was probably half-frozen. Dylan thought she might've had cider that she could heat up and offer to him. Or at least apple juice, which wasn't as good but was better than nothing.

A series of _clicks_ told her Nuada had slid the locks into place. She turned around to thank him and froze.

Silver eyes, cold as steel, with cat-slitted black pupils. A waterfall of black hair tied back in a long horsetail. Black tunic and trews without the sash or Bethmooran crest. Pale lips curved into a familiar and cruel smile. Before Dylan could so much as scream, Eamonn reached out and grabbed her wrist, yanking her close. His other hand tangled in her hair and yanked, jerking her head back.

"It's a sad but very true fact—humans really are simply too stupid to live," the Zwezda Elf murmured. His smile widened. Something cold gleamed in those quicksilver eyes. "I told you I'd come and pay you a visit sometime. Didn't I, sweetness?"

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_**Author's Note:**__ oooohhhhh, dear. Maybe I'm a sadist, but I've always wanted Eamonn to have a few days__—or maybe just a few hours—__of unlimited access to Dylan. I don't know why; the poor girl's been through so much already. Maybe because Eamonn's so... weird. I don't know. I'll figure it out eventually. But anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and I'd love some reviews of course. Huggles for everyone!_

_- LA_

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_**Concerning the Fic and Chapter Title:**__ the fic title_, Once Upon a Moonless Dark, _was a collaboration between me and WhenNightmaresWalked, who is spectacularly brilliant, I must say. As for the chapter title, I wanted to allude to Eamonn and his whacked-out scariness (he is an Elf of Zwezda, a Child of the Stars), as well as a lack of light. So... yeah._


	2. Red Under the Moon

_**At the Bottom of This Chapter:**_

_Author's Note__  
__Concerning the Chapter Title_

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_**Author's Note:**__ what can I say? I like angst, danger, and psychological torture. That's one of the reasons I like Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker. So this is a darker side of LA that most people don't see much anymore. It's still at the same sexual rating as the original Once, just so we're clear, and the violence level is the same. It's just that there's less "light at the end of the tunnel," as it were. Dylan's stuck with Eamonn... for at least a few days. And we know our favorite little psycho can come up with a lot of stuff to do to her in that time. But he's got a special plan in mind for her, so I hope you enjoy the chapter._

_- LA_

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**Chapter Two****  
****Red Under the Moon**

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Nuada bit back a groan as a faint imitation of sleep slipped away, leaving him awash in red-hot pain that spilled over him in brutal waves. He pressed his face into his pillow for a moment, simply allowing the pain to come, allowing his body to grow accustomed to it again. After two days of magical healing in his underground sanctuary, the raw wounds across his back no longer screamed at the slightest movement. He'd finally slept for a few hours before being dragged back to wakefulness by his stripes.

"Still can't do much," Wink rumbled from his chair beside the fireplace. Nuada didn't acknowledge his vassal's words. This was an argument they'd been having since the Elven prince had managed to stagger out of the king's hall with blood dripping like rain down his back and shoulders three nights prior. It was early Saturday morning now, in the first hours of the day of Samhain, and the prince wanted to be up and about. Wanted to go check on Dylan.

Eamonn hadn't said a word about her at the trial. Nuada had expected taunts, threats. At least insults to Dylan's virtue. There'd been nothing. The Elven warrior didn't trust that. Instinct told him that Eamonn wasn't finished with whatever assault he meant to lay against the prince. Could that also mean hurting Dylan?

"You're no good to anyone half-dead," the troll added, as if reading Nuada's mind. "You can barely walk. You need to remain here until you've healed, my prince."

The prince finally spoke. "I could bring her here, where it is safe."

Wink sighed. "And put yourself in the exact same situation that led to your flogging in the first place? The mortal will be fine for a few days, Nuada. If you go to her, especially now, you could be walking right into a trap. Another chance for Eamonn to blackmail or entrap you."

Nuada sighed and shifted his weight. Sparks of pain nipped across his shoulders and waist, burned along his spine. Wink was right—he was in no shape to protect Dylan if Eamonn made a move for her. But Eamonn probably wouldn't unless Nuada showed renewed or unabated interest in the human woman. He would have to wait until he'd recovered more fully to check on the mortal to whom he owed a debt.

_Stay out of danger, Dylan,_ Nuada thought, trying to relax into the pain so it could fade all the more quickly. _Wait for me._

**.**

Strong, careless fingers pulled sharply on her hair and Dylan gasped. Eamonn tightened his grip on the delicate human wrist until the bones ground together and tears welled up in her eyes. He crowded her against the entryway wall, pinning her with the weight of his body. He let go of her hair and grasped her chin.

"Well, now, sweetness. I'm actually starting to see the appeal." His thumb ran slowly across her bottom lip. She tried to bite him. Eamonn smirked. "Now, now. Bad girl." He slapped her hard enough to make her see stars. She tasted blood and spat in his face. Eamonn slapped her again. "Listen to me, little human whore. I can make this somewhat pleasant for you, or I can make you suffer pain like you've never dreamed of in your darkest nightmares. I know all sorts of interesting ways to hurt you. I even know a few ways to make you enjoy it. If you _behave_," he added with a snarl, "I'll let you live after I kill Silverlance. _Behave_."

"I would rather drop dead," Dylan hissed.

Eamonn jerked her chin up, forcing her head back against the stone wall. His thumb pressed hard against the top of her throat and she tried to gasp for air. Found she could barely manage it.

"You should take more careful with what you say," the Elf whispered. "I just might oblige you." He eased the pressure on Dylan's throat. She sucked in a breath that threatened to choke her. "Now, then. I suppose, being human, you wish to defy me. Run away? Fight back, perhaps." He smiled indulgently. "If it will make you more biddable in bed, then by all means, try to fight me now. Try to run." The silver-eyed Elf stepped back, freeing her completely. "Go on. I'll even give you a head-start."

Dylan stared at him. Was this a trick? A joke?

"Start running, sweetness," Eamonn murmured. "I promise I'll enjoy chasing y—"

She bolted for the kitchen. Her bad knee slowed her down, but she made it to the kitchen drawer that held her good cooking knives without Eamonn catching her. With shaking hands, she yanked the drawer open. The long butcher knife slid from its place in the knife-rack with the soft sigh of stainless steel against polished wood.

Dylan turned, the knife in one hand, and yelped in sick surprise when she nearly ran into Eamonn. Gripping the knife, she stabbed at him.

He caught her wrist easily and plucked the butcher knife from her fingers. "Hmmm. Your first thought was to kill me, not to beg or run. I am reluctantly impressed. Was that what Silverlance first saw in you? Your fighting spirit?"

The tip of the knife touched Dylan's collarbone where it pressed against her delicate skin just above the half-open lapel of her bathrobe. Moonlit blue eyes widened. "It seems such a shame to get blood on whatever you're wearing beneath this robe." The knife whispered across her skin to slip beneath the robe's lapel. A flick of Eamonn's wrist flipped the lapel open to reveal black silk covering one of Dylan's shoulders. "Oh, that's lovely." He drew the blade back across to the other lapel and flipped that back. Cool steel grazed more skin as the knife eased down to the swell of one breast, over the wide white scar above her heart. "Just how many scars do you have, human?"

"None of your business," she whispered.

Eamonn smiled. Dylan swallowed and tried to yank back from him. The knife scratched her, drawing a tiny line of blood. She half-flinched instinctively.

"Oh, dear," the Elf murmured. Dylan's eyes snapped to his face. That otherworldly silver gaze was fixed on the cut. Eamonn's nostrils flared. "You've gone and hurt yourself. Poor girl."

Before she could react, he leaned down and ran the tip of his tongue over the wound. Dylan jerked back with a sound of disgust. He tightened his grip on her wrist and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her against him. Dylan immediately stomped on his foot. He grunted. Balling her hand into a fist, she punched him in the jaw. The impact dislocated one of her fingers. Pain flooded through her hand in a red-hot wave. She yelped and pulled her hand against her chest, sucking in a shuddering breath, biting back a whimper.

"Got it out of your system yet?" Eamonn asked in a voice that was mocking in its gentleness. "Or do you want to play some more?"

She tried to ram her knee into his groin. He let her go and she lost her balance, staggering back and tumbling to the cool tile floor of the kitchen. Her head cracked against the tile. Brilliant lights exploded across her vision. In an eye-blink, Eamonn straddled her waist, pinning her hands against the tile in a bruising grip. Dylan swallowed nausea as she realized the situation was _exciting_ the dark Elf.

"I'm curious—how long do you plan to fight me?"

"Get off me!" She yelled. She didn't bother screaming for help; no one would hear her through the thick, stone walls of the cottage unless they happened to be _on_ her property, and the psychiatrist doubted anyone would do that. She didn't often get visitors. So she simply bucked against Eamonn and cried, "Get off!"

He sighed. "If I attempt to kiss you, you're going to bite me, aren't you?" When she wriggled, trying to escape, he shackled both wrists with one hand and grabbed something off the floor by his knee. The dim lights of the kitchen turned the silvery blade of the butcher knife a dull orange when Eamonn touched it to the corner of Dylan's eye. She froze. Eamonn smiled. "That's a girl." He drew the point of the blade lovingly over the curve of her cheek, never breaking the skin. "I would imagine whoever cut up your face before left quite an impression on you. You're afraid of being cut like that again, aren't you?" Icy steel kissed the corner of Dylan's mouth. Cold sweat chilled her skin as those silver eyes studied her almost dispassionately. "You remember what it felt like…don't you? The burn of the knife cutting into your skin; the stinging scent of blood; the hot copper of it in your mouth; that animal fear in your belly; you remember it all."

Dylan squeezed her eyes shut as terror pulsed through her, sick and icy hot, strangling her. She wouldn't beg. She would _not_ beg. She only clenched her teeth as Eamonn traced the shape of her mouth with the point of the knife.

"Not a whimper out of you," Eamonn whispered. The knife grazed the fullness of her bottom lip. "I _am_ impressed. You're like one of Silverlance's thoroughbreds—strong, spirited, defiant. I've heard he refuses to break them of that fighting spirit. I should warn you, I have no such compunctions." He shifted his weight, and she felt the heat of his breath on her mouth, so at odds with the icy touch of the blade on her skin. Pain throbbed through her jaw as she gritted her teeth even harder. "But I must confess, you fascinate me. Why don't you beg? Attempt to bargain with me? Do you think Silverlance will come and save you? Is that it?"

She wouldn't speak, she vowed. Wouldn't give him _anything_. Nothing.

"He's not coming anytime soon," Eamonn said. "I made sure of that." Dylan's eyes flashed open. He chuckled at the frantic dread in the depths of her gaze. Relished the way the breath stuttered in her chest. "Oh, you sweet, innocent little thing. Do you honestly think I'd come here if I thought he could stop me? No, no, no."

Hating herself, she whispered brokenly, "Is he…is he dead? Did you kill him?"

Eamonn's laugh slid over her like a violating caress. "No. Where is the fun in simply killing him? No, he's merely wounded at the moment. He'll be well enough in a week or two, though I expect him sooner than that. He won't be able to resist coming here. But that still gives us plenty of time to become acquainted with each other. He'll come for you eventually, of course, and when he does…well. I'll have a problem: whether to kill him and keep you, or kill you in front of him before putting an end to him. I'll admit, the thought of his expression when Silverlance catches me using his whore pleases me greatly."

"You can't win in a fight against him," Dylan said. Every word vibrated with confidence and anger. "He'll kill you."

"No, sweetness. He'll be too distracted trying to save you. Now…" He lightly scraped the edge of her jaw with the knife, drawing a few drops of blood. She jerked and made a small, frightened sound. "Shall I take you here like a common kitchen slut, or would you prefer a bed?"

She swallowed back the scream trying to shove past her clenched teeth. "If you have sex with me, isn't that just as bad as what Nuada supposedly did?"

The Elf shook his head. "He made the mistake of falling in love with you. I was mildly annoyed with him when I found out he was rutting with a human, but a man has needs. If he truly couldn't find a suitable whore for his purposes, I could overlook turning to such a source for a bit of relief. I was simply going to kill you and have done with it; rid him of the distraction, as it were. But no. Instead he kills my servant for you. He's lost his heart to you. One of the enemy. _That_ is something _I_ never need to fear. You have your…qualities, but love?" Eamonn's smile was gentle and condescending as he said, "That would be like falling in love with an ill-bred dog."

Dylan spat in his face. He instinctively turned, and the gob of saliva struck his cheek. Eamonn closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. He wiped the spit away with the back of the hand holding the knife. Gazed down at her.

"A _stupid_, ill-bred dog," he said, and backhanded her. The blow sent white light shooting across her eyes and left her dazed. Eamonn stood up. The clatter of metal on stone told Dylan the Elf had dropped the butcher knife in the sink. He knelt beside her and sighed. "I'd hoped we were past this by now, but it appears not."

His fist slammed deep into her stomach, driving the breath from her. Eamonn hit her in the belly again and she nearly retched. He left her shuddering and gasping on the floor, barely able to see past the spots floating across her vision, and went into the living room.

Fingers scrabbling pathetically at the tiles, head swimming, Dylan managed to get to her hands and knees just as the Elf returned holding a palm-sized piece of blue metal and plastic. Dylan's eyes widened. It was her phone.

As she watched, Eamonn crunched it into small shards in one fist before letting the pieces drop to the floor with an almost musical tinkling sound.

"In case you thought you'd somehow get your hands on it long enough to call for help," he said. He knelt down again. Brushed his knuckles against her cheek in a gentle caress. "Do you know what it does to me, seeing those brief sparks of hope and defiance in your eyes, knowing I'm going to snuff them out one by one?" Without waiting for an answer, he scooped her up and got to his feet. "Come along, now."

Even though it was useless, even though he would hurt her for it, Dylan kicked and flailed in his arms. Instead of trying to restrain the frantic human, Eamonn simply dropped her to the unforgiving floor. Pain flared through the arm she landed on. Blood burst from her lip when it split between the hard tile and her teeth. Flashes went off behind her eyelids when her forehead smacked the floor.

Instead of picking her up again, Eamonn twisted his fingers in her hair to get a good grip and began to drag her down the hall. He ignored her screams and her vain attempts to halt their progress. He didn't stop until they reached the door to her bedroom. One swift kick broke the lock and doorjamb. The door hit the wall with a _crash_.

Eamonn hefted Dylan by the hair and tossed her into the room. She sprawled across the carpet. Gritting her teeth and crying silently, blood trickling down her chin, she scrambled to her hands and knees and tried to crawl away from him. The Elf's boot, planted in her back, sent her to the floor again.

"Did Silverlance buy you this bed?" Eamonn asked as he drew off his tunic and tossed it on the floor beside a bed bigger than the mortal's kitchen. Dylan didn't answer. She merely struggled to get up, to get away from him. He grabbed the back of her fluffy, blue bathrobe. She twisted, slipping out of it, and managed to get her feet under her. Eamonn merely grabbed her by the hair and yanked her back. Spinning the mortal so she faced him, he jerked her head back, forcing her to look up at him. His gaze raked over the silky black nightgown that hugged the human woman's body. "Were you expecting him tonight?"

She didn't answer. Instead she dug her nails into his wrist, trying to force him to let go of her hair. Blood continued to drip down her chin from her split lip. She twisted, writhed, trying to loosen his grip. He yanked on her hair until tears sprang into her eyes.

"Gods, you're fun," Eamonn said. "Still trying to fight. It's useless, but you keep trying." He slid his free hand around her throat, his thumb brushing back and forth above her hammering pulse. He leaned in until a breath separated his mouth from hers. "Will you keep trying even while I'm hurting you?"

Dylan's furious scream came out half-strangled as she fought him harder. Eamonn simply grinned. His tongue snaked out and flicked against her split lip. Dylan tried to bite his tongue. Pain flashed across her scalp as Eamonn tightened his grip on her hair.

"Let me go," Dylan hissed. "Or I swear I'll kill you, do you hear me?"

To her utter shock, Eamonn let her go. He stepped back and held up his hands in the universal gesture of no-harm.

"I have something for you," the Elf murmured. Dylan scuttled back from him until she stood next to her dresser. Grabbing one of the heavy, silver-base snow-globes off the top of her dresser, she hefted it in warning. Eamonn smiled. "I suppose the next thing you're going to do is order me to leave your cottage."

"Get out," Dylan snapped. When he didn't move, she screamed, _"Now!"_

He sighed heavily. "Ah, sweetness. Surely you've realized by now that yelling and screaming will get you nowhere?"

Eamonn reached into his trouser pocket and withdrew two silver flasks, one etched with three stars surrounding a rayed sun. He set them on the nightstand. Next he withdrew something small and white, as opalescent as a pearl and as diminutive as a bean. Ice frosted the inside of Dylan's chest. She didn't know what that thing was, but she knew she couldn't let it near her.

The dark Elf smiled. Then he rushed her. Dylan hurled the snow-globe. It hit Eamonn in the shoulder with a meaty smack and bounced off, shattering on the floor. Eamonn grabbed her by the throat, his fingers biting deep into her flesh, and threw her to the floor on top of the glass shards. Dylan screamed as glass sliced deep and hot blood flowed. Eamonn's hand planted itself against the mortal's chest and he shoved her down, grinding the glass deeper. She arched, desperate to get away from the searing agony of the broken glass, and Eamonn grabbed her face and forced her mouth open. Her skin was slick with tears, sweat, and blood. He shoved the pearlescent thing into her mouth and then forced her mouth closed. He covered her mouth with one hand, cupping the back of her head with the other to prevent her from pulling away, and then planted one knee on her chest to keep her from getting up.

"Swallow it," he snarled while she clawed at his wrist. Flesh gathered under her nails and silver blood welled up, but he didn't let her go. "Swallow it!" He slammed her head against the floor. The shock made her gasp. She choked on the bean-like object in her mouth and coughed, swallowing it.

Suddenly Eamonn let her go and stood up. Dylan cried out and rolled off the shards of glass, sobbing as the new wounds on her back screamed at her. Glittering water and blood seeped into the back of her nightgown. Tears dripped down her cheeks. Gritting her teeth, she reached over with trembling fingers and grabbed a sliver of glass. The edges pressed against her skin and drew blood. Pain burned through her hand. She ignored it and waited for Eamonn to come closer. She'd drive the knife of glass right into his heart or…or _something!_ She'd _kill_ him.

Soft footsteps, muffled by the russet and emerald carpet, warned her. When Eamonn knelt beside her, she heaved up and swung with the glass shard—not aiming for his heart, but for his throat. She'd cut his throat and watch him bleed out on the rug. And she'd laugh, damn him. She would _laugh_ while he bled out—

Eamonn intercepted the strike a mere couple of inches from his throat. One hand held Dylan's wrist. He curled his other hand around hers, the one that held the deadly glass shard, and he pressed her hand closed. Heat blazed across her palm and through her fingers. She cried out, jerked her arm, but he simply kept pressing until blood welled up between pale fingers, vibrant and crimson as mortality. The blood dripped onto the rug as her arm spasmed and pain raked through her hand. Eamonn watched her dispassionately as the glass bit deeper.

He let her go. Crying softly, hunched over, she had to force her fingers to open so she could attempt to pull the glass, wet with her blood, out of her flesh. Her fingers slipped and slid. Pain zinged through her hand and arm. The glass stayed embedded in Dylan's palm.

"What... what did you give me?" She whispered, fighting against the instinct to curl into a ball around her screaming hand. She fought to focus on the question so she could get up the nerve to try pulling out the glass again. "What was that? Poison?"

The Elf chuckled. "Not exactly. A highly concentrated form of Branwen's Tears." Her horrified gasp made him laugh again. "You'll start to feel the effects in a few hours. Doubtless, you won't be able to keep your hands off me." Eamonn gripped Dylan's chin hard enough that white spots stood out around his fingers. "And I shall be able to hurt you…and you will _like_ it, you filthy little whore. But in the meantime, I have time to help clean you up and see to your wounds. Would you like some help?" Eamonn asked, suddenly gentle, and he released her. Stricken eyes stared at him. "I'll help you…in exchange for something I want."

Dylan immediately shook her head.

"Ah, ah, ah. You do not even know what it is. Don't be too hasty. It's something very small."

She swallowed salt and blood. Nauseous from the blistering fire raging through her hand and radiating up her forearm, she whispered, "What?" She'd deal with the gancanaugh poison in her system later. Right now she could barely think beyond the vicious pain in her hand.

"A kiss." He smiled when she flinched. "Just one kiss. No fighting me."

"I…I just have to let you kiss me? And then you'll pull the glass out?" He wasn't a prince or a king, she thought. He had to tell the truth.

His smile widened. "I will…but you have to kiss me back, sweetness."

Bile rose in her throat and she would've shaken her head, but she was afraid that if she did, she'd throw up. Blood continued to spill through her fingers onto the carpet. Dizziness swept through her. She knew what he was doing; or she thought she did. He was trying to manipulate her. Why, Dylan didn't know, but she knew he had some kind of sick plan that involved equal parts cruelty and tenderness.

She opened her mouth to speak, but Eamonn cupped her chin and leaned toward her.

"Don't fight me, sweetness," he whispered, and covered her mouth with his. His tongue forced her lips apart and thrust into her mouth, nearly choking her. He tangled his fingers in her hair and forced her head close, preventing her from pulling away. She squeezed her eyes shut to block out the feel of his teeth biting and his tongue threatening to choke her.

Not a real kiss. Just another form of rape, full of savagery and blood and pain. Dylan forced herself to hold still and stay as un-tensed as possible. To let the twisted Elf kiss her.

The brutality eased the longer he kissed her, however. Once he realized she wasn't going to fight him—she'd do almost anything he asked if he just pulled out the glass and let her tend the savage wound—Eamonn became a little gentler. He dominated her, forcing her to accommodate his kisses, but the cruel grip on her hair relaxed and he contented himself with licking at the blood in her mouth instead of drawing fresh.

_Kiss me back_, he whispered in her mind. She whimpered. He nipped her bottom lip. _Do it, or I'll take you with that glass still in your flesh. Kiss me. Pretend I'm your precious prince if it helps._

Dylan scrunched her eyes shut and tentatively kissed Eamonn back, even though she didn't know what she was doing and everything in her tried to recoil from him. Trembling, fighting not to be sick, she kissed the cruel Elf as blood spilled down her back and over her lacerated palm. She kissed him until pain and blood-loss left her dizzy and sick.

Eamonn pulled back and licked his lips, his expression almost dreamy. He reached out and caught a tear just as it began to spill down her cheek. The tear trembled like a fragile diamond on the tip of his finger. Smiling, he ate the tear.

Dylan made a small sound, half-confusion and half-terror. All fight gone, she cringed away from him when he touched her cheek. A vile taste lingered on her tongue.

Then the dark Elf took her palm and plucked the glass from the wound so quickly Dylan yelped. The glass had cut nearly to the bone. Hot blood flowed freely from the wound. She could feel blood still trickling down her back, as well. Without another word, Eamonn scooped her up and carried her into the master bathroom.

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_**Author's Note:**__ what's going on with Eamonn? It's something I've read about in books and seen in movies. A lot of psychos will do it - a mixture of viciously cruel punishment and unexpected tenderness. It throws the victim off-balance and is also a great way to break down resistance. Why does he want to do this? Well, besides wanting to break Dylan's spirit, he…oh, wait. You guys should wait to read about that._

_Anyway, hope you enjoyed, and I hope you guys keep reading as I update. Don't worry, the chaps are gonna stay relatively short (between 2-6,000 words) so it shouldn't inundate you with verbage. So... yeah. Love you guys!_

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_**Concerning the Chapter Title:**__ "Red Under the Moon" is a brilliant "Little Red Riding Hood" fanfic, only about 600 words, by the literary genius OceanFire9. Everyone should go read it 'cause she rocks my socks!_


	3. Dangerous Game

_**Author's Note:**_ so one thing I'm trying to do here is explore Eamonn's character and his relationship to Nuada. So Nuada doesn't appear in this chapter, but Eamonn's whole motivation (at least his surface motive) against him is explained in this chapter.

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**Chapter Three****  
****Dangerous Game**

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The fluorescents were harsh in the bathroom attached to Dylan's bedroom. Tremors wracked Dylan's body as Eamonn carefully plucked tiny slivers of glass from the various cuts on her back. Trickles of blood dribbled down her spine to catch on the neckline of her black nightgown. More blood dripped from her wounded hand to mingle with the crystalline gush of water from the sink faucet. The touch of the cold water seared in the deep wound. She gritted her teeth until her jaw ached to keep from crying out.

"That's the last of it," the dark Elf murmured. A tiny piece of glass fell into the marble sink with a tiny _tinking_ sound. "Let me see your hand." Wide, somewhat glassy blue eyes jerked up to stare the Elf. Dylan cradled her wrist as her injured hand shook. She bit her lip and shook her head. Eamonn sighed. "Give me your hand, you stupid mortal cow. I can't fix it if I cannot examine the wound." Without waiting for permission, he grabbed her wrist and yanked her hand toward him. She yelped as the merciless grip and sharp movements sent pain screaming through her hand and arm.

Eamonn gently probed the wound. Fresh scarlet welled up and smeared his fingertips. He took one of the black wash-rags from the rack by the sink and folded it around Dylan's hand, soaking up the blood. Pressing the rag against the wound with his fingers, he closed his eyes. A cool, prickling sensation shivered from the tips of Dylan's fingers up through her arm. She gasped.

"What are you doing?"

Pale lips curved into a smug half-smile. "Healing you, of course," he said. He forcibly guided her wrapped hand back beneath the icy water still spilling into the white marble sink. "Unless you want me to pierce your fragile, mortal flesh with such crude implements as needle and thread. Do you enjoy pain? Because I can oblige you if that's the case."

Dylan didn't reply. She merely sucked in a sharp breath as a wave of blistering heat swept up her arm from her hand, followed by a tingling like a thousand needles of ice stabbing deep into every nerve. Squeezing her eyes shut, she bit her lip.

"Oh, cry out if you must, sweetness," Eamonn whispered. "I'll not protest, I assure you."

"Get bent," the mortal snapped.

A knife-thin black brow winged upward. "I'm unfamiliar with that term. Enlighten me."

She glared at him. "It means I'm not going to do anything for you that makes you happy. Ever."

Eamonn's smile was sharp as a knife blade and wicked as sin. "Oh, but sweetness—you've already made me very, _very_ happy. I never thought a kiss from mortal lips could taste so sweet. Blood and chocolate." He slowly licked his lips. Bile rose in Dylan's throat and she quickly turned away. Eamonn's low laugh slid over her like a violating caress. "Let's see how this looks now."

He withdrew her hand from beneath the running water and unwrapped the sopping washcloth. Dylan's mouth fell open. Her palm was completely unmarked except for a thick, jagged line of silvery-white spilling across her skin. She flexed her fingers. No pain. No stiffness. Her hand was absolutely fine.

"How did you…how…"

"I have some healing ability," Eamonn said. "Silverlance does not."

She flicked him a dismissive glance. "Do you think that makes you better than him? Because it doesn't."

The Elf of Zwezda went very still. Dylan braced herself for his next assault. Would he strike her? Beat her? Or violate her as he'd threatened? But he didn't do any of those things. He drew a slow breath and let it out in a shuddering sort of sigh.

"No, innate magical ability does not make me a better man than Silverlance, nor does lack of it make him a better man than I. What makes me the better man is that _I_ know how to keep my word. Which is why I'm here now, with you, and _he_ is not." He suddenly reached up and grabbed her face with one hand. His fingers bit into her chin and cheeks. "Remember that when the agony of what I'm going to do to you is eating away at your frail mortal shell and you're choking on your own tears, and you've screamed yourself hoarse begging me to stop, begging Silverlance to come and save you. Remember that _I_ always keep my promises, even when your precious prince does not. When he finally comes, it won't be to rescue you. It will be to see you die. He isn't going to save you."

Dylan didn't so much as bat an eyelash. She merely looked into Eamonn's quicksilver eyes and said, "I don't know whether he's going to rescue me or not, but I do know that he promised me his protection. So if he doesn't save me, then when he _does_ come, he'll kill you."

Eamonn smiled bitterly. "So confident in your lover. I admire such loyalty. Such a shame that he isn't worthy of it."

"What would you know of loyalty?"

He swept her off the bathroom counter and slammed her into the wall with enough force to send the wounds on her back singing with pain. The back of her head hit the towel rack and stars exploded across her vision. Eamonn's hand clamped around her throat. Her nails dug into his wrist, drawing fresh silvery blood. The dark Elf ignored the pain and leaned in until his forehead touched hers. Hot breath practically scalded her face.

"What do _I_ know of loyalty? You filthy human _bitch_. _I'm_ not the one who betrayed my people! The fae are dying because of _your_ race and one of our princes has given his heart to one of our enemy! He betrayed us all; he has to be punished! I'm still loyal to my race, to _all_ the fae races. I haven't forgotten what the humans have done to us. He thinks he can go sniffing after a mortal slut like she's some bitch in heat and he will pay no consequences? No." Eamonn's eyes closed and he clenched his teeth. His grip on Dylan's throat loosened. "He is Bethmoora's crown prince. He's supposed to protect our kind; supposed to fight for our kind. And he betrayed us by falling in love with you. He must face the consequences of that betrayal."

Fear made her mouth dry as cotton; shock left her speechless. Dylan closed her eyes and tried to think—not like a frightened woman, but like a psychiatrist. Eamonn was playing some kind of mind-game with her, using tenderness and cruelty to manipulate her. But, Dylan thought, she was a mind-healer. She could do the same thing to him. She just had to _think_.

"I didn't know he'd done that," Dylan whispered. Her voice came out thick and raspy in the wake of Eamonn's bruising grip on her throat. "I never thought Nuada would ever do something like that. He seems so dedicated to protecting the fae."

Cat-slit silver eyes locked with hers. "He _was_," Eamonn said. A strange light burned in his gaze. Dylan knew that _this_, at least, wasn't a form of manipulation. It was simple, raw, half-mad honesty. "He was the last line of defense for Bethmoora. The king abandoned us long ago. The princess is weak, spineless. Silverlance was our last hope…and you stole him from us. Humans always steal what is most precious to the Fair Folk."

Dylan licked dry lips. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "I had no idea." Putting a quaver into her voice—it wasn't difficult with the fear a shadowy animal clawing at her insides—she added, "I don't want to hurt the Kindly Ones. I want to help them. I didn't know being friends with Nuada would hurt them. I'm sorry."

He studied her. "'Friends?' Is that what mortals call it? You're his lover; don't you care for him?" Before she could reply, Eamonn added in a voice frosted with cold hate, "Or do you spread your legs for every fae male who comes to you?" His free hand found her hip and slid down past the lacey edge of her nightgown to find her lower thigh. His fingers bit into her flesh. "It's not even rape, is it? Not when the whore's willing. Is it fae flesh you crave, sweetness? You'll let any man have you, so long as he's one of the Hidden Ones?" He gripped her thigh. His skin burned against hers. "Is that why you let Silverlance take you?"

She shook her head frantically. "I didn't," she whispered. Eamonn's fingers flexed against her leg. "I'm not sleeping with Prince Nuada." Her eyes widened as an idea struck her. "I swear on the Darkness That Eats All Things, Prince Nuada and I haven't had sex."

Eamonn's eyes widened. "You…haven't." Something flickered in his eyes when Dylan shook her head. "Yet he came to you here, every night, for nearly two moons. He kept you in one of his lairs for the gods know how long; don't tell me he didn't." Another odd flicker in that mercurial gaze. "What did you do for him?"

"Nothing!"

"Do not lie to me," he hissed, his breath scorching against her mouth, "or I will cut out your tongue. Whether you love him or not, he loves you. If he hasn't bedded you, that merely proves it. Why else would he spend so much time with a human woman?" Suddenly Eamonn grinned. "I actually prefer it this way."

Confusion mingled with chilly panic and tried to grip her by the throat with sharp, little teeth. "What? Why?"

"It means I'll get to enjoy Silverlance's woman before he does." He shifted so that his lips were a breath from her cheek. They grazed her skin when he crooned, "How he will despise me for that. He'll know until his dying breath that I bedded you, that I took you in his place. That knowledge will eat at his guts like acid."

She closed her eyes. Whispered, "Why are you doing this?"

A sigh, warm as a lover's caress, against her cheek. "He must pay. I told you that. He needs to be punished to the fullest extent."

Desperately, she demanded, "How is raping, torturing, and killing _me_ supposed to punish _him_ to the fullest?"

Eamonn's mouth touched her skin. He brushed tiny kisses along her cheekbone to the corner of her eye. When she flinched, he chuckled. Dylan tried to jerk back from him and her head hit the towel rack again. Eamonn leaned in further. Flicked the tip of his tongue against a spot just beneath her ear. She jumped, then bit back a curse.

"You don't know much of Silverlance's history, do you?" Eamonn asked. "His mother, Queen Cethlenn, was raped to death by a band of humans when he was boy. Raped for sport. He bore witness to it. There are even rumors that he led the humans right to the Queen. Everyone knows he still bears the weight of his guilt for not being able to save her. The king blames him, as well.

"I want to drown him in guilt, in shame, before I kill him. So I intend to do to you what those mortals did to his precious mother. I will break him, break his spirit and his heart, and he will know that he couldn't save the woman he loves, just as he couldn't save the queen. Then, when he begs me for death, only _then_ will I kill your precious prince." The dark Elf's teeth scraped lightly along her jaw and Dylan barely managed to bite back a whimper. "This has never been about _you_, you stupid girl. It has always been about him. You're merely my tool for breaking him to pieces."

"He's not in love with me," she protested softly. "He hates humans."

Cool lips curved into a smile against the vulnerable line of her throat. "And yet he killed one of my servants, an unarmed faerie woman, to save your life. Oh, yes, he loves you. And you love him. So I'm going to rip out both of your hearts."

Grasping at a straw, Dylan said, "I'm not in love with him. We're friends. That's it."

Eamonn jerked back to glare at her with steely eyes. "You can't _be_ friends with the enemy!"

Shifting his grip, he twisted his fingers in Dylan's hair and dragged her to the bathroom counter. Slamming the mortal against it hard enough that she knew she'd have a band of blue bruising across her stomach later, he bent her forward and forced her face to within a couple inches of the mirror.

"Look. Open your eyes and actually _look_. You're human. Your kind is a plague on this planet. A sickness infecting the very heart of this world. You kill everything you touch. You carry darkness and pain and destruction with you wherever you go. The realms are dying because of you. Look at yourself; see what your own kind has done to you. Humans ruined that pretty face. They marred that lovely, lily-white skin with these brutal scars. All mankind has that sickness, that cruelty inside them. Nothing can stamp it out. It's how you were made. The only way to eradicate the taint is to kill those who carry it. _That_ is the _only_ way to save the fae!"

_He's out of his mind,_ Dylan thought, _and he considers himself a patriot. A savior of the Fair Folk. How can I use this? I have to use this somehow to get away from him. To escape. How do I turn this around?_

Then something the Elf of Zwezda had said whispered through her skull.

Swallowing, Dylan asked in a falsely tremulous voice, "You really think I'm pretty?"

He went very still. His fingers convulsed in her hair. "What?"

"You said my face was pretty."

A reflection of silver eyes glittered in the mirror. "For a scarred human whore…I suppose. Does that please you? Will flattery make you stop fighting me?"

Dylan closed her eyes when tingles of pain sparked across her scalp. He still hadn't let go of her hair. She barely managed to brace herself against the marble counter with arms that shook. Her bad knee was already threatening to buckle. Sucking in a breath, she let it out slowly and took a gamble.

"You want me to stop fighting you when you intend to force yourself on me? You've drugged me, struck me, threatened to kill me…and you want me to just let you?"

"I've already said that if you behave, I may let you live instead."

"Then how would you punish Nuada?"

Eamonn let her go abruptly and her leg gave out. She half-tumbled, half-sank to the floor, clinging to the cupboards and counter to keep from dropping in a completely graceless heap. Her leg folded beneath her. She couldn't have gotten up if she'd wanted to. Instead she watched the remote Elf with wary eyes.

The Elven warrior swept his arm across the top of the toilet tank, sending decorative little porcelain dishes of fancy soaps smashing to the floor. Dylan flinched at the symphony of shattering ceramic. Then Eamonn perched on the tank, his black boots stark against the white porcelain lid. He propped his elbows on his knees and his chin on his folded hands, watching her with the gleaming eyes of a predator.

"Which would hurt him worse?" Eamonn asked abruptly. "For him to find your violated corpse and know that once again, he'd failed to save someone he loved from the worst fate imaginable to him…or for him to find you on my arm, in my bed, my willing plaything? Which is worse to a man in love—to lose his lover to death, or to a rival?"

She swallowed. This was just like that first night in Nuada's subterranean sanctuary, when the golden-eyed prince had asked her what she'd do if placed in the position he'd found himself in regarding owing her his life. Walking on eggshells. As if one wrong word would earn her a knife in the chest. Only this time, one wrong word just might get her killed…or worse. Dylan forced herself to think beyond the thundering of her heart in her chest and the icy panic spreading like winter's kiss through her veins. She couldn't panic. She _wouldn't_ panic.

"It depends on what kind of man he is," the mortal replied softly. "Which matters more to him—his love, or his hate? Does he love me more than he hates you, or vice versa? And which form of vengeance would _you_ prefer?"

The corners of his pale mouth quirked in a mocking smile. "Well, aren't you just as quick and clever as a courtier. Fae rarely love more than once, but he has lost the woman he loved before. No one knows how, only that he returned from abroad after her death a changed man. How much would he change after _your_ death, I wonder?" Eamonn mused, rubbing a finger over his chin. "And yet…he's betrayed us. Betrayed me. Would a betrayal against him not be more fitting?" He fixed her with a suddenly bright gaze of palest silver. "To have the woman you love then fall in love with another… one who sought to destroy you…"

Before she could stop herself, Dylan snapped, "There's not a snowball's chance in Hades of me falling in love with you!"

To her utter shock, Eamonn threw his head back and laughed.

"Ah, there's that defiant spirit! I'd wondered where it had gone. Just a little pain, a little manhandling, and it disappears like a frightened rabbit into its hole. Yet here it is again." His smile was almost affectionate. "Shall we play some more games, then, you and I? To see if I can do all that I say I can do? The Tears won't begin to affect you for some time yet. Would you like to try to run away again? I'll give you another head-start."

"Why do you keep doing that?" Dylan demanded. "Why toy with me?"

His smile widened. "Because it's such fun, sweetness. I want to see you try to run, because you're a coward, and cowards always run. And I want to hunt you down, because that is what one does with cowards. I desperately want to hurt you, because I enjoy hurting my enemies."

She shook her head. "I'm _not_ your enemy. I've never attacked you! Never hurt you until now! Why am I your enemy?"

"Because you're human."

Dylan cast about frantically for some retort, some sort of reply that could buy her some time. She could already feel the gancanaugh poison in her system beginning to simmer. Heat-prickles whispered across the back of her neck. The blood burned in her cheeks and across her chest. The seepage from the tiny wounds across her back soothed some of the odd itchiness beneath her skin, but only some. By the time the venom took full effect, her body would be on fire, muscles cramping and skin so sensitive that even just the touch of something light as silk would hurt. What would Eamonn do then?

"I…I propose a deal," she said. The Elf cocked his head. Though his face remained impassive, she knew she'd caught his interest. He was fae. The fae liked making deals. Some of them couldn't resist. "What would I have to do to get you to let me go?"

Argent eyes regarded her in utter silence for so long she began to count her heartbeats. Would this work? Would he fall for it?

Eamonn smiled.

"As I said, I like to hurt my enemies. I shall strike a bargain with you, my sweet. Have you an hourglass?" He asked. Dylan nodded. "Here is my bargain: I will hurt you. I will not permanently damage you, nor cripple you. I won't violate you…yet. But I _will_ hurt you, in countless ways, for seven turns of the glass. You may cry out. You may scream. You may weep. But you may _not_ ask me to stop. If you bear seven turns of the glass, seven hours of what I will do to you, without forfeiting to me, then I swear on the Darkness That Eats All Things that I will not only let you live and cease my tortures, but I will also give up my vendetta against Silverlance. Have we a bargain?"

Dylan squeezed her eyes shut. Felt the blood crusting her back and seeping from some of the deeper lacerations. Listened to the screaming thunder of her heart in her chest as she considered all the ways Eamonn might torture her.

Then she thought of Nuada. To save him from this madman...

She opened her eyes.

"Okay. Deal."

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_**Author's Note:**__ so that's chapter 3. I don't know how often I'm going to update this. It's more my dumping ground for frustration and angst at any negative aspects of my life so I can keep said angst out of the mainstream_ Once. _So I don't know how that'll affect my writing schedule. But hopefully you guys are enjoying this so far. Love you all! Merry Christmas! Huggles!_

_- LA_

_PS - the word "argent" is a synonym for "silver."_


	4. Golden Ropes, Crimson Blood

_**Author's Note:**__ so I haven't updated this in a while, because I only work on this fic when I've had a cruddy day. So I finally have enough for a chapter. Here it is. Hope you enjoy. Is that the right word for reading this kind of fic? Enjoy? Eh, whatevs._

_By the way, I got the idea for the torture device in this chapter from an episode of_ Criminal Minds.

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**Chapter Four**

**Golden Ropes, Crimson Blood**

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Nuada's eyes came open with a snap as wakefulness crashed down on him with sudden, violent clarity. He'd been dreaming, he thought. Dreaming something terrible. Even now, the hazy memory of screams and cruel laughter made his stomach churn and bile scald the back of his throat. The Elven warrior squeezed his eyes shut tight—not to better recall the memory, but to push down the rising nausea. He hadn't the strength to race to the privy if his sickness overcame his control. So Nuada clenched his jaw as a tremor raced through his body, then relaxed. The nausea faded. Whatever he'd been dreaming had been…something terrible. That was all he could remember.

After a few minutes with his eyes closed, he knew the knowledge of the dream hovering just on the edges of sleep would prevent him from finding rest again. Slowly he drew his arms in until he could brace his hands on either side of his body. He tensed his legs. This was really, _really_ going to hurt.

When he could put it off no longer, Nuada pushed up with his hands and at once drew in his knees and pushed off the bed with them, so that he rose slowly off the mattress. The healing flesh on his back blazed with red-hot stripes of fire as the movement reopened a few of the lashes. He sucked in a breath and gritted his teeth. He needed to get out of bed. He needed to be up and about, training, getting stronger. Something—some sense of urgency—told him he needed to get better, needed to get well, and he needed to do it as soon as possible. He just didn't know why.

But he was a warrior, trained for countless centuries in the practice field and in battle. Throughout the centuries Nuada had learned to trust his instincts. If they were clamoring at him to get up and move, he would do it…even if he could feel blood running in tiny rivulets down his back to soak the waistband of his loose black sleeping trousers.

And always in the back of his mind, like a clock ticking down to some far-off event, was the thought of Dylan.

Was she worried for him? Had she tried to find him? There was no chance she'd be able to find the sanctuary without a guide. What if she _had_ attempted to locate him, to see if he needed help? Nuada thought the pain would be more bearable with Dylan tending to his injuries; she had a way about her that no other human possessed. It was bizarre, but it was also the truth. No other human would've been able to keep him alive after being shot more than half a dozen times, especially with poison and illness racking his body as well. Only Dylan. And her small, deft hands would serve as the tools of a better nursemaid than Wink with his large, three-fingered hands untrained in aught but field medicine.

In a few days, Nuada told himself as he slowly got off the bed and stood on unsteady feet. In a few days he would be strong enough to make the journey back to her cottage and make sure she was safe, as honor demanded. And if the healing didn't go as he desired, perhaps he would have her take a look at his back, as well. Surely her salves and tinctures could do something for the pain.

**.**

Her world was nothing but pain. Agony burned through Dylan's shoulders, radiating up her bound arms and down her back. She was so tired, but the pain kept her from being able to sleep. She could only hand her head as Eamonn prowled around her, speaking quietly to her as she hung from the makeshift torture device he'd erected in the middle of her bedroom using the frame of the bed and whatever else he'd been able to find.

"I will stop if you ask, sweetness," the dark Elf crooned, coming so close that the warm puff of his breath ruffled her sweat-dampened hair. "All you need to do is ask, and this pain stops." His touch was mockingly gentle as he caressed her face, tracing the ridge of eyebrow and the smoothness of temple, the delicate edge of cheekbone and the fullness of lower lip. "Surely it would be better to submit and come to my bed than for me to hurt you like this. It has only been an hour. Can you last six more?"

She didn't speak. Her throat ached from holding in her screams for the past sixty minutes. Eamonn had managed to drag a few raw shrieks of pain from her, but they'd been muffled behind her clenched teeth. When Eamonn's lips touched the cut on her cheek, she jerked away from him. His fingers clamped down hard on her chin and jaw.

"Now, now," he said reprovingly. "You said you would submit to me so long as I didn't force myself on you. I have not. Now hold still."

Dylan bit back a whimper as Eamonn's lips, disturbingly soft and warm, slid across the curve of her cheek and along her jaw before he nipped ever so gently on her lower lip. He nuzzled that lip almost lovingly before he whispered against Dylan's lips, "Give me your mouth."

She shook her head. Silver ice burned in Eamonn's eyes. He lowered his head slightly, so that he looked at the woman before him from beneath furrowed black brows. Dylan clenched her teeth and didn't look away.

At last, the Elf of Zwezda sighed. "It seems I must remind you that breaking your word to the fae is a dangerous thing to do."

Releasing her jaw, he stepped away from to untie the rope twisted and knotted around the post of Dylan's bed. The mortal couldn't hold back a whimper this time. The rope. That rope. No, no, no…She gazed at Eamonn beseechingly, fear stealing her voice. Fear and the memory of pain. The dark Elf ignored her. Wrapping the rope around both hands to give him better leverage, he yanked on it once with a grunt of effort.

Dylan screamed as the improvised device wrenched her arms—tied behind her back and, until then, forced upward as high as they could go—even further up and away from her back. Tendons and ligaments in her shoulders strained and popped. The ball-joints threatened to dislocate from their sockets. Sickening, dizzying pain ripped through her shoulders, arms and back. She screamed again when Eamonn gave an experimental tug on the rope.

Eamonn tied off the rope around the bedpost again, keeping her arms in the agonizing position. Then he came to her and cupped her face in his hands. His palms were red and irritated from the burning salt of her tears, but he didn't seem to care about that. His brushed his thumbs across her cheeks in an obscene imitation of intimacy and tenderness.

"Now, sweetness," he murmured, leaning in. "Give me your mouth like a good girl."

He touched his mouth to hers, still obscenely gentle. His lips were warm and coaxing, as if she were his innocent paramour instead of his victim. With her arms still shrieking, she didn't dare keep her lips pressed together when Eamonn's tongue swept across them. Instead, she gave him her mouth, as ordered. His hands slid into her hair, tangling and fisting to keep her head still as he kissed her. She tasted blood, but couldn't be sure if he'd bitten her or if she'd bitten her tongue when he'd hurt her. When he drew back, a drop of crimson stained his bottom lip. He licked it away.

"Gods, you try my patience," Eamonn whispered, nuzzling her cheek. Dylan bit her lip until more hot copper blood flooded her mouth. "And my control. I want you, you know—Nuada's truelove. His very heartbeat. His wanton little human whore. I want to feel you under me. Taste your blood on my tongue, burning with salt and iron. Hear you scream." He licked her cheek. Shuddered. "_Gods_. How did Silverlance resist the temptation of your body? He loves you, and you're ripe for the taking, and yet he has not claimed you completely. The more fool, he."

His hand clamped down on her thigh, which was already bruised from his cruel fingers. He squeezed hard, his fingers fitting to the raw black marks already marring her skin. She bit back a gasp of pain. His teeth scraped the side of her throat and she tried to jerk back, but the ropes holding her arms prevented her. His fingers slid around to the inside of her thigh. Slid upward, skimming over her flesh. The needle-prickles of Branwen's Tears, only half-dormant now, tracked his progress, heating her flesh where he touched her.

"Stop it," she gasped. Eamonn's hand stopped its progress, though he stroked over the same inch of skin with the backs of his fingers. "You said you wouldn't force yourself on me."

The chuckle rumbling in his throat was like rich, dark chocolate. Dylan _loathed_ dark chocolate. Eamonn's fingers slipped a little higher on her thigh.

"I did promise that," he whispered. "I never said I wouldn't touch you." He sighed against her throat. "I _want_ to touch you. The flesh here," he added, stroking, "your flesh…it is so very soft. Like satin. You swore that Silverlance has never bedded you, but…" The hot, rough fingers slid a fraction of an inch higher. Dylan could feel her pulse pounding against the pads of Eamonn's fingers. "Has Silverlance ever touched you like this, sweetness? Has he shown you what pleasures can be had simply from a man's touch?"

Dylan bit back the word _please_. She wouldn't beg him to stop. She _wouldn't_ beg. But her gasp came out strangled and terrified when Eamonn's fingers found the hollow of her inner thigh, the shallow concave dip just before her leg met her pelvis. He wasn't really touching anything. Yet. But he was close, too close…It took everything she had not to scream.

"You'll like it, sweetness," Eamonn crooned against her ear. "You will. You'll beg me not to stop, I promise you. And is not pleasure so much sweeter than pain?" He suddenly froze. Pulling his head away from her neck, he stared at her. A droplet of moisture ran down his cheek from his temple. He swiped at it and studied the tear on his fingertip. Dark brows furrowed. He looked at her. "Why are you crying?" She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head away, biting hard on her lip. She despised herself when a quiet sniffle escaped. Eamonn turned her face back to him with inexorable pressure. Stroked her cheeks with the backs of his fingers.

"I can be gentle when given the right motivation, Dylan," Eamonn said softly. Her eyes flew open. He'd never used her name before. He spoke it almost tenderly. With the tip of one long finger he traced a tear-track on her cheek. "Why do you fear such a small thing even more than what I will do to you if you refuse me? Is it faithfulness to your prince? You fear him thinking you disloyal even more than you fear," here he grabbed one distorted shoulder and squeezed, so that she half-sobbed a cry of pain, "what else I can do to you?"

He traced her trembling bottom lip with his thumb. It smeared blood from her bitten lip across the fullness of her mouth. She tasted copper and salt, new pennies. Eamonn leaned in, his face unreadable, and kissed her softly. He didn't seem to care that the iron in her blood stung his mouth. His lips whispered over hers, tracing delicately, exploring; the sort of kiss one might expect from a generous and considerate lover. Fresh tears spilled down Dylan's face.

Eamonn drew back, licking her blood from his lips. He cocked his head to one side. "Why are you so afraid of coming to my bed?" Eamonn whispered, eyes roving over her face, searching for some clue. "What about being my leman frightens you so? Do you perhaps fear getting with child? Is that it?" The hand he stroked her cheek with slid downward, calloused knuckles grazing jaw and throat and fragile collarbone before skating along the lace edge of her black nightgown. "Surely you're not a virgin."

She tried to kick him, but she only succeeded in knocking herself off-balance and wrenching her arms. She gasped, sobbed. The dark-haired Elf steadied her.

"You _are_," he said, almost wonderingly. "No wonder Silverlance courted you so carefully. You're yet a virgin. You want Silverlance to be your first." A dark light flared to life in his cat-slit silver eyes and he twined an arm around her waist, yanking her flush to him. She yelped at the sudden hot wrench on her screaming arms. "Perhaps I might even oblige your wish. And yet...that does not preclude me from..." He reached for the hem of her nightgown.

This time Dylan managed to kick him, her knee connecting with his groin. Eamonn grunted and staggered back, wheezing, pale face nearly gray. His back hit the bedroom wall and he hunched over, struggling to breathe. Dylan wondered if she'd enraged him enough to just forget his sick games and kill her. She'd prefer _that_ to being manhandled and pawed at.

"You little bitch," Eamonn rasped thickly. He managed to straighten up with visible effort. "Oh, you'll pay for that. And so will Silverlance when he arrives." Without another word, or even a sound save a vicious snarl, he went to the rope tied around the bedpost again. The mortal squeezed her eyes shut and tried to brace herself. The slither of the rope against the polished wood made her heart pound. She felt Eamonn tug the rope a little in experimentation. Dylan clenched her teeth, pain making her nauseous. Rolling waves of sharp pain crashed against her back with every pull of the rope.

She felt Eamonn's breath on the back of her neck as he whispered, "Oh, sweetness, you should have spread your legs for me instead of trying to unman me…because what I intend to have your precious prince do to you will be so much worse. Now brace yourself, pet, because this is really going to hurt."

With a savage grunt, Eamonn heaved on the rope. Shards of molten agony stabbed deep into Dylan's shoulders, arms, and back as the rope yanked her arms straight over her head. Tendons stretched with low groans of protest, ligaments straining under the pressure. The balls of her shoulders dislocated with sickening _pops._

Dylan _screamed_. Screamed until she had no more voice, screamed until her throat was raw and she could only rasp and wheeze. Screamed until she could no longer fill her lungs with air.

Then she blacked out.

**.**

John Myers scratched the back of his shoulder irritably. Both shoulders had been itching and prickling for the last hour or so, and he couldn't figure out why. He couldn't do anything about it, either. He was on assignment, and he was supposed to keep things low-key—which meant he couldn't take his suit-coat off, because then people would be able to see the gun he wore in a holster under his arm, black against the white of his button-down shirt. So instead, he rolled his shoulders and tried to focus on the job at hand.

Earlier in the evening, he'd gotten a cramp in his hand something fierce. The pain had been enough to make his eyes water. He still didn't know what had happened there. And now his shoulders were bothering him. After he got off-shift, John thought he might make an appointment with his doctor. Anything could be screwing with him—some kind of disease, like cancer or something, or an injury he hadn't known about.

Or, he thought with some venom, the Fair Folk might be screwing with him. He couldn't see through their glamour as well as his sister could, by any stretch, but John Thaddeus Myers knew the Fair Ones were out there, screwing with people. His twin sister's rather hectic schedule was testament to that. She slaved away day after day helping the fae and the humans blessed—or cursed—to be able to see them. He'd seen what kind of impact they'd had on Dylan's life. He knew they could really mess a person up if they chose.

He just hoped they hadn't chosen to _really_ hassle him, because if they did, he'd probably end up dead. Who knew what kind of crap the Hidden Ones might pull on him?

At least his twin sister was safe. Her cottage was warded by the presence of elder and rowan trees, rosemary bushes, and a little house sprite that could keep away anything crazy. And besides all of that, she had that Elf prince who came to visit. Dylan had said he'd look after her, and John saw no reason to doubt her.

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Dylan came awake slowly, as waves of pain lapped at the shore of her consciousness. Beneath her cheek was something soft, something that smelled of night-blooming jasmine and chamomile. It was also slightly damp. She was lying on something soft, too. A mattress? A steady, warm hand stroked the damp hair back from her face. The touch left trails of poisonous golden heat beneath her skin. Her shoulders ached abominably.

Suddenly memory flooded her mind: Eamonn, the rope contrivance, the touching and her knee in his groin, his fury. Dylan tried to shoot upright, but her arms wouldn't support her weight. Even trying to move her arms at all sent agony lancing through them, and her shoulders spasmed. Dylan fell to her belly on the bed—that _was_ what she was lying on—with a cry.

"Do not move too quickly," a familiar and chilling voice whispered. A hand pressed down on her shoulders, sending darts of pain biting through the abused, protesting joints. She bit back a whimper of pain. "Relocating your shoulders was a bit more difficult than I anticipated. Mortals are so very fragile."

She flexed her hands, which had been numb when she'd passed out. The feeling had returned, and her wrists burned from the chafing of the ropes. A glance told her that the rough hemp ropes had rubbed the flesh raw.

Eamonn grasped one of her hands and straightened out Dylan's arm. Sudden throbbing made her gasp. The Elf ignored her and raised her arm straight up from the mattress, tormenting the inflamed joint and sending nauseating pain through her arm. Dylan's fingers twisted in the sheet beneath her. Eamonn's free hand was a heavy warmth as it smoothed over her hair and down her back to rest at the small of her back, just before the curve of her hips.

"If you're going to kill me, please just do it," Dylan whispered, her voice muffled by the tear-dampened pillow beneath her cheek. "You've had your kicks."

"Mmm," Eamonn hummed against where he pressed a kiss to Dylan's palm. "Perhaps I have taken a perverse sort of liking to you."

"I don't care," she mumbled.

In a flash, Eamonn had levered Dylan up and flipped her onto her back, yanking her arms over her head and clasping her wrists in one implacable hand. Immediately she began to kick at him, even with her bad leg. He solved the problem by straddling her thighs. His weight held her pinned to the mattress. Dylan saw, as bile rose in her throat, that he'd taken his tunic and shirt off while she was unconscious, leaving his pale chest bare. Rough hands made the raw flesh of her wrists burn.

"Please don't squirm, sweetness," Eamonn growled low in his throat, leaning over her. The lace overlay of her black nightgown scraped his chest. The heat of his body was scalding. "It distracts me." He pressed his nose to the juncture of her neck and shoulder, inhaling deeply. "You smell like fear," he groaned. "Fear and need. The Tears are taking effect. When Silverlance arrives, he won't be able to resist you. I can scarcely keep myself in check. I can smell your desire."

She shook her head, struggling against mindless panic even as her skin flushed at his nearness. He'd drugged her; the monster had drugged her. It didn't mean anything that her body strained toward him. "No," Dylan gasped. "You're delusional."

"Oh, no, I am not," Eamonn whispered, licking the spot over her pulse. A whimper escaped her clenched teeth and pursed lips. "I will prove it to you."

With deliberate and cruel slowness, he slid his free hand from where it had pressed into the mattress to the protruding bones of her hip, then up, over the sleek quivering belly clad in lace and satin. Dylan whimpered again when, with sickening deliberation, Eamonn cupped her breast in his palm. She'd expected him to be rough, but he wasn't. He massaged her gently, reveling in her humiliation as her body responded to him against her will.

"Stop it," she hissed as he nuzzled her throat. Mortal tears burned her eyes and spilled in ice-cold rivulets from the corners of her eyes to trickle across her temples. "Stop it."

"Your body does not wish me to stop," Eamonn breathed, his tongue swirling over her pulse. He brushed his palm over her breast. A soft, needy mewing sound escaped her. "Thanks to the Tears, your body desires my touch now. It needs my body to give it peace, to ease its torment. You need me to claim you, to make you mine. Otherwise the ache I've begun in you will never stop. Unless..." He added, brushing his thumb across the lace and satin. "Unless it is Silverlance you prefer. Is that what you wish? You want him to take you in my place? Because I can give you what you want. I can make him crave you like a drug."

His mouth latched onto the soft flesh at her throat and he sucked, drawing the flesh into his ravenous mouth, sinking his teeth into the vulnerable skin, biting hard. Even as Dylan pleaded with him to stop, he drove his teeth deep into her flesh. She cried out, a sound of mingled pleasure and pain. When he pulled back, he licked her blood from his lips and teeth. Crimson trickled from the bite across her skin to soak into the pillow and sheet beneath her.

"You said you wouldn't rape me!" Dylan cried desperately as his hand slid higher to find the strap of her nightgown. He toyed with it as she sobbed, "You swore on the Darkness!"

He leaned down and kissed her, tongue sliding in slowly like a poisonous snake making its way through tall grass. To her horror, Dylan found herself responding even as a distant part of her mind screamed at her to stop. Eamonn kissed her thoroughly, exploring her mouth as he hadn't dared to do before, for fear she would bite him. And as he kissed her, his fingers tugged insistently at the lace and satin strap once more. A moan welled up in her throat and tears spilled from her eyes as Eamonn forced her hands down a little to slide the strap over her shoulder.

The dark Elf wrenched away from her to gaze down at the panting, weeping woman trapped half-under him. Eamonn smiled. Kissed her again, gentle as a lover. She sobbed aloud even as she found herself opening her mouth for him once more.

"By the time Silverlance and I have finished with you, sweetness," he whispered against her lips, spilling terror through her soul, "it won't be anything so base as rape."

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_**Author's Note:**__ of course there's going to be more torture, because of course our girl isn't going to give in that easily. If he pushes her hard enough, she'll fight back even harder. So stay tuned. Let's see if Eamonn's mind-games affect just Dylan, or if they have even more far-reaching effects that he could never have foreseen._


	5. Burn Me to Death

_**Author's Note:**__ so this chapter is a bit longer than anticipated, because I couldn't find a good stopping point. The events of this chapter were difficult to write, so I hope you guys…enjoy…them. Is enjoy the right word? I don't know. Anyways, here's chapter 5. Hugs to you all!_

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**Chapter Five**

**Burn Me to Death**

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"What in the name of all the gods are you doing?"

Nuada sighed and glanced over his shoulder at Wink, who stared at him with his single eye wide and his mouth hanging open. The Elven prince sighed and pressed his palms to the smooth plains of the sanctuary's wooden table, wondering the same thing as Wink. He'd had less than two full days of rest and recovery in the magical underground healing space. If the flogging had been inflicted by anything other than an iron-tipped whip, it wouldn't have been—much of—a problem, but the iron still poisoning his blood meant his wounds healed human-slow, even with the magic of the sanctuary aiding him.

He could _feel_ the toxic burn of it threading through his veins, soaking into muscle and bone. It left a dull ache in his limbs, a smoldering fire beneath his skin; a sluggish fever-heat baking him from the inside out. A wise man would've been in bed. A wise man would have perhaps swallowed his pride and risked seeking out a healer to tend to him. A wise man would've gone to one such healer, mortal though she was, and let her do what she so often could for him. But that wasn't why Nuada was on his feet now, shuddering through the waves of nauseating pain that swamped him.

"I'm going to see the human," Nuada muttered. A tremor went through him as he lifted his head to look at his vassal. Slivers of white-hot pain sliced across his back with the movement. "I need to ensure Eamonn has not visited any retribution on her, either for aiding me or defying him."

"My prince, you are in no shape to travel," the troll informed him sharply. "You can barely walk."

A humorless smile tugged at Nuada's mouth. "Which is why I am starting out now. I expect to arrive a little after mid-of-the-night. She will tend to my hurts when I get there." He hesitated, but then added, "I may stay for several days. Just to be sure."

Wink growled, a low rumble that rolled through the sanctuary like thunder. "A visit to the mortal can wait, Sire."

Nuada would've been inclined to agree…if not for the dream. He could not recall the details, only that he'd been straining to reach Dylan, haunted by her agonized screams and sobbing pleas for mercy. Every instinct prickled, demanding he go to her, ensure his enemy hadn't lashed out and taken vengeance on her for her service to the Elven prince. But he didn't speak of the nightmare to Wink. His vassal knew the prince was often plagued by brutal nightmares; why, he would ask, should this one be any different? Only Nuada's instincts told him it _was_.

"It cannot," was all Nuada said.

Frustration sizzled beneath Wink's skin. Centuries ago, when Nuada looked upon the troll more as a father, he could have badgered the prince into remaining. But that love had morphed into the love of a friend and brother, and Wink _was_ the Silverlance's vassal, Nuada his liege. He was honor-bound to obey the prince's order. But…

"At least allow me to go with you," Wink said softly.

Nuada shook his head. "I have a mission for you, my friend. I need you to return to our lair. My father will no doubt send a spy to check up on me, to ensure I stay away from Dylan. They will come to the lair first; I know my father. He will not send a fae to a mortal dwelling unless absolutely necessary. If such spies come for me, you must send me word at once."

"My prince—"

"I _need_ to see her, Wink," Nuada confessed softly. "Something—I know not what—is driving me to go to her. I must be certain she is safe." Weary topaz eyes rested on the worried troll. "Forgive me, Brother. I know you fear for me. I will take care, but I must do this."

Cyclopean eye narrowed, the silver cave troll asked cautiously, "My prince…what do you think you owe her?"

Another shudder of pain ripped through the long, lean Elven body. Nuada's teeth snapped together so hard he tasted the sour-sweetness of blood where he'd bitten his lip. His fingers knotted into fists against the smooth table grain. Through clenched teeth, the Elven warrior bit out, "I owe her for defending me to Eamonn, though it might have cost her life. I owe her for protecting the halfling child where anyone might have run far from the responsibility and the danger. I owe her for keeping her promise to me to protect my people to the best of her ability. And I owe her for…" For two contented months' evenings of conversation, stories, bread broken in what might be called friendship, for lack of a better name. "She has done more for me, for my people, than most would ever be willing to do. Yes, she is human…but she is…I believe she is loyal to me. Does not that loyalty deserve mine in return?"

Wink had no counter to such words. Only a slow-building shadow of nameless dread swelling in his heart. So he merely pressed his hand to his chest, bowed his head, and murmured, "By your command, my prince." And he watched Nuada walk out of the sanctuary with a sinking heart.

**.**

Dylan's head lolled limply on her neck and tears of pain and exhaustion rolled down her cheeks. Ropes bit cruelly into her wrists. Only the unconscious support of the bedpost kept the crick in her neck from worsening. She'd been a fool. She'd been a complete idiot to think she could survive Eamonn's bargain without begging him to stop. If he'd kept his attentions focused on her, maybe she would've been able to hold out. But it hadn't been for her sake that she'd pled for mercy.

It had been Becan's. Her brownie.

She'd wondered, while Eamonn had touched and stroked and kissed her and she'd wept and hated him, if the house sprite Nuada had told her lived in her cottage was home. What was it doing while the dark Elf molested her? Watching avidly? Only if it hated her, and if it did, why did it service her house? Had it gone for help? Or was it helpless to do anything? Dylan hadn't known the answer, but the thought of anyone witnessing what Eamonn was doing to her had made it all so much worse. She'd nearly choked on humiliation.

Then her brownie had made himself known. Not only that, he'd _attacked_ Eamonn. Using house-sprite magic, he'd launched everything that could remotely serve as a weapon (that he could touch) at the Elf of Zwezda. Hope had sprung up in Dylan's heart when she'd realized what was happening.

Only then…then Eamonn had charged toward a corner of the room, and snatched an invisible entity from the air. Dylan had screamed when Eamonn had slammed the little body against the wall. There had been a small crunch and a tiny, strangled gasp of pain. The levitating objects had thumped to the floor. Eamonn had smashed the wee fae into the wall again. Another crunch. A wheezing, gurgling cry of agony. The cruel, pale hand had reared back to crush the brownie against the merciless stone a third time when Dylan had finally screamed for him to be merciful, please, just don't hurt him anymore!

Now Becan lay huddled and unconscious in a glass jar with air-holes punched in the top, which Eamonn had set on her dresser, while Dylan slumped on the floor beside her bed, arms stretched upward by the ropes binding her to the bedposts.

"Did you really think a _brownie_ would be enough to defeat an Elven noble?" Eamonn crouched in front of her and brushed his knuckles along her jaw. She fought not to flinch, and failed. He hadn't just groped and fondled her after Becan's attack. He'd done that first, then methodically and mercilessly beaten her blue and purple. She'd caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror over her dresser—both lips split, bloody, and puffy; one eye half-swollen shut and a violent red-violet; a crust of blood beneath her slightly swollen nose; and inky-indigo splotches painting her face. The worst of it hadn't been the beating, though. She wouldn't think about the worst of it. At least he hadn't raped her—yet.

Eamonn's fingers tangled in Dylan's hair and he forced her chin up, making the muscles in her neck and upper shoulders spasm. She sucked in a breath. Another tear spilled from the corner of her eye. Cat-slit silver eyes roved over Dylan's face. Her heartbeat thudded against her bruised ribs, keeping time in the sudden humming silence. Eamonn's pale lips curved into a cold smile. He leaned in and took Dylan's bruised mouth, his tongue plunging deep so that she nearly choked on it, and ravished her mouth for countless heartbeats while she wept helplessly. She didn't dare bite him. Not when Becan's life hung in the balance. And she couldn't stop her body from rousing, despite the thudding pain clamping down on her body from the phantom memory of Eamonn's blows.

With a groan, Eamonn tore his mouth away. "Gods, the waiting…I can scarcely bear it." He licked her lips, and his saliva burned in the cracked splits bisecting her mouth. "When Silverlance arrives, then I'll have you at last. Will you enjoy that, sweetness?" He leaned in, his hands sliding down along the slender column of her neck, over the shadowed necklace of bruises marring her throat, over the fragile collarbones. He skimmed his palms over her breasts, still clad in lace and satin, though the soft pale flesh at the swell of her breasts beckoned him to mark it with purple fingerprints. His hands smoothed over her belly, feeling it quiver with that heady mix of desire and fear. At last he grasped her thighs, just beneath the hem of her nightgown, gripping mercilessly, digging his fingers into the creamy flesh. His breath was hot, moist, violating as he growled in her ear, "Will you enjoy it when I spread your thighs and plow you like a rutting bull? When I finally use you as Silverlance should have done long past? Will you enjoy the taking? My seed between your thighs?"

His tongue slid along the side of her neck, warm and wet, making her stomach roll. He groaned appreciatively as his teeth sank into the delicate flesh of that pale throat, just beneath her ear. Dylan whimpered. Eamonn's teeth tightened, pressing…pressing. Pain ripped through Dylan's neck. A spill of warm wetness trickled down her skin; she smelled rust and salt. Blood.

"I can wait no longer," Eamonn murmured, lapping at the blood. "I must have you. You _will_ submit. You will enjoy what I do to you. I will defile that innocent virgin's body, all so that I may rub your precious prince's face in your desecration…and you will enjoy every second." Without anymore warning than that, Eamonn's hand slipped beneath the hem of Dylan's nightgown. His fingers hooked in the waistband of her panties, bunching around the elastic, ready to rip the scrap of cloth from her body, leaving her vulnerable to him.

Terror raked merciless claws across her heart. Dylan began to struggle wildly, forgetting what Eamonn had done to her thus far, forgetting the danger to Becan. "No! No!" She screamed, thrashing. "Don't touch me! Let me go! Let me _go! No!_" Eamonn's backhand cracked across her face. Fresh blood spilled into her mouth. She spat it in his face. "_NO!_"

A knock at the front door stilled them both. They froze, tangled together, panting for breath. Then Eamonn drew a deep, sniffing breath, like a wolf scenting prey. "Oh, yes," he growled. "He's _here_. He's here at _last_. And he's wounded. Wounded badly, by the weakened feel of his power and the smell of all that blood."

"What?" Dylan whispered. "What did you do to him?"

Eamonn's grin was vicious and feral. "Flogged him—two-thousand lashes with an iron-tipped whip. A fitting punishment, flaying the flesh from his back, after he'd given in and succumbed to the wiles of _your_ flesh. He's in no shape to fight, I assure you."

"You're lying," Dylan snarled as the knock came again. But she knew, from the confirming warmth in her chest, that in fact, the Elf of Zwezda was telling the truth. If Nuada tried to take the other Elf on in his current condition, he would lose. And if he lost, Eamonn would kill him. Kill them both.

Lamplight flashed on a knife-blade. Dylan flinched and barely managed to stifle a scream. But all Eamonn did was cut the ropes binding Dylan's wrists over her head. The tip of the knife caught on the delicate skin of each wrist, drawing blood from shallow cuts across the blue veins. Not enough to do true damage, but it hurt, blazing lines drawn in fire across her wrist, and the blood was stark scarlet against her pale, mottled skin. Then Eamonn was dragging her to her feet, shoving her through the bedroom door. He paused only long enough to snatch up her robe. He marched her down the hall while forcing her spastic, twitching arms into the sleeves. All the while, he issued low-voiced orders.

"You _will_ invite him in. Welcome him. Tell him you were hurt out there in the mortal realm, that some men attacked and frightened you. Beg for his comfort. You _will_ do this," Eamonn snarled, "or I will crush your little brownie to pieces, one tiny limb at a time, and I assure you, it will take _hours_. And that is _nothing_ compared to what I will do to _you_, sweetness."

Then he practically threw her at the front door just as Nuada knocked for the third time. When she looked back, Eamonn was gone. There wasn't even a glamoured shimmer to tell her where he might be hiding.

_Becan…_Dylan shuddered, clutching the robe tightly around her. Warm blood spilled down her arms from her wrists, down her neck from the wound there. _He'll kill Becan…Nuada's in no shape to fight him…I can't let him in…but I can't turn him away. I can't let him in…I don't know what to do._ A sob caught in her throat.

"Dylan?" Nuada called. The edge of concern in his voice made her hands shake badly as she undid the seven bolts on the door and unlatched the main lock. Somehow she knew that if she didn't answer, he would break in, as he had that first night with the leanashe. If he did that, Eamonn would kill him. But how was she to make him go away? How was she to convince him to leave before Eamonn had time to attack him?

"Open the door," a cold voice hissed in her ear. She felt glamour shoving at her, trying to force her to obey. It wouldn't work. The silvery mark at her throat, the fear darrig's blessing, kept the fey magic from catching her in its grip. "Do it now."

Fresh tears fell as she struggled to think of _something_ she could do. She was so tired…Eamonn hadn't let her sleep for the two days he'd held her captive. Her hand shook as she turned the knob on the front door. It swung open to reveal Nuada, fist upraised as if he'd been about to knock once more. When the light from the entry hall fell over him, and he saw her in the light, his eyes widened and horror spread across his face like a disease.

"Dear gods," he breathed, reaching for her. "Dylan, what happened?" She flinched, trained from two days of constant blows and unwelcome touches. The nearness of him whispered to the Tears in her blood, setting it aflame. Heat settled low in her belly. For a moment she could scarcely breathe. Then Nuada was gripping her shoulders, fingers biting. "Who did this?"

"Let me go," she gasped, unable to think of anything else. The moment that he'd touched her, she'd nearly fallen into his arms. Struggling for air, Dylan staggered back against the wall of the hallway. The world swam around her. Fever pressed down on her skull; was it the Tears? The cold of winter beyond the door? Or was her mind finally fragmenting? Nuada stood there, so safe and so strong, a haven against the darkness, and she ached to throw herself in his arms. But she couldn't, she had to warn him, somehow, about…"Don't touch me. Just please go away!"

"What is it?" Nuada asked, drawing closer. His eyes, molten bronze with rage, darted over the bruises, the cuts. Then he saw crimson on her hands. Quick as a snake, his hands shot out and he gripped her wrists. She cried out in pain. He flipped her hands over to see the bloody crescents in her palms, the rope burns on the fragile paleness of her wrists, the slices across the mazarine veins. Brow furrowed, eyes troubled, he gazed at her. "What is this? Who did this to you?"

She shook her head, which made it throb harder, made the world flip end over end. She was gasping now, pain clutching at her, fear ripping at her. "Please…please, Nuada, I…please, I…Why won't you just go—"

"Was it Eamonn? Did he do this to you?"

Her eyes flashed to his face, and he must have seen the truth in her gaze, because realization crossed his expression. His gaze began to slide past her when suddenly strong arms were jerking her back from Nuada's clutching grasp. An arm snaked across her body, light flashed on something silver pain bright, and Dylan felt the coldness of Elven silver laid against the line of her carotid artery. A cruel hand jerked her hair, forcing her head back to leave her throat vulnerable.

**.**

"Well, we know _you're_ not in top form, Silverlance, since you didn't breach my glamour. Feeling a bit out of sorts, are we?" Eamonn drawled, sneering at the prince.

"Eamonn! You coward, let her go!"

"But if I give her back to you I shall be so lonely," Eamonn chuckled, backing Dylan up further. "She's been such lovely company these last two days. So warm to me. Hmmm…" He licked her cheek. She flinched. "So welcoming. Of course, she withheld many of her favors for fear of what you would think, so I promised her we could wait until your arrival. Poor darling," he added, nuzzling the line of Dylan's jaw. "She must be positively frantic for relief by now, as it's been a full day since I made her drink the Tears."

Nuada jolted. Horror and rage warred across his features. "You…gave her…"

"The beatings and the bloodletting probably helped her keep a grasp on her sanity," the dark-haired Elf added airily. "But now that _you_ are here, I imagine it will be like trying to escape a nymph in heat. You want Silverlance, don't you, sweetness?" Eamonn brushed his lips against her temple and grinned when Nuada growled like a dog. "Throw down your weapons, Silverlance." When Nuada only stared back at him coldly, the amusement left the other Elf's face. He jerked Dylan's head back further and pressed a touch harder with his blade. A rivulet of crimson spilled across mortal flesh. "Do it or I'll cut her throat."

After a brief hesitation, Nuada tossed aside sword, twin-knife, spear, and dirk.

"Take off your shirt," the dark Elf commanded. Face expressionless, Nuada obeyed, tossing the black silks to the floor. Eamonn smirked. "Now repeat after me, Silverlance. 'I swear, by the Darkness That Eats All Things, that I will not try to fight, escape, or resist in any way while Eamonn mac Dubh is binding me this night.'" The prince didn't speak until Eamonn dug the point of his knife into Dylan's throat and she gasped in pain. "Say it."

Looking as if he were swallowing glass, Nuada vowed, "I swear, by the Darkness That Eats All Things, that I will not try to fight, escape, or resist in any way while Eamonn mac Dubh is binding me this night."

The silver-eyed Elf pulled the knife a fraction of an inch from the mortal's throat. "You do anything wrong, sweetness—you do _anything_ I dislike—and I'll kill your precious prince. Do you understand?" Dylan looked at Nuada, cold and remote as a winter moon. She begged him for forgiveness with her gaze. Nuada gave her a silent nod, and followed Eamonn as he walked backwards with Dylan, the blade still at the vulnerable blood-vessel of her throat. He didn't dare go for the Zwezda Elf while he kept that knife at her throat. Somehow Eamonn bound the mortal with one hand for the ropes while he kept that knife steady. Then he went to Nuada, and quick as a snake, his hand shot out and he struck Nuada a handful of blows to the back and ribs that staggered him, knocking him to the floor. Agony ripped through his back as he hit the carpet. Chuckling, Eamonn hit him in the ribs again, then delivered a vicious kick.

"Stop it!" Dylan screamed, straining against the ropes. "Stop it, leave him alone! Eamonn, please! Please, Eamonn!"

The dark Elf grinned and dragged Nuada to his feet, threw him toward a mess of ropes, and bound him quickly, Gordian knots and cords so tight they bit cruelly into Nuada's flesh. He didn't struggle as the other Elf tied his hands behind his back and then to the sapling-thick bedposts. Then he rigged the bonds so that, if Nuada fought the bindings after his oath to Eamonn ended, it would dislocate Dylan's shoulders again. His feet were bound to the heavy oak dresser, forcing the prince to kneel in front of the dresser, half-suspended by the ropes. Nuada bit back a curse. Eamonn was far too clever for the prince's peace of mind. And he'd positioned them so that whatever Eamonn did to Dylan, Nuada would be forced to watch.

Eamonn chuckled and dropped onto Dylan's bed, propping his elbows on his knees. "Well, now. Isn't this cozy? And doesn't she look lovely, Silverlance?" A pale, rough hand swept back the curtain of Dylan's hair before traipsing over her temple, her cheek, her jaw. His fingers alighted on the nightgown strap, black lace and satin. She shuddered, tried to pull away. "Did you get this little confection for her, Silverlance? Was she going to wear it for you while you buried yourself deep in her body?"

"You're disgusting," Nuada snarled.

"I'm not," Eamonn lashed back. "_You_ are. _You're_ the one who wants to rut with her, use her, take her to your bed. Make her your lover. You want her, don't you? I can see it in you. Battered, broken, still you ache for her. I can see the yearning for her in your eyes. You cannot take your eyes off her, even now." Eamonn lifted the knife he'd set on Dylan's nightstand, toyed with it so the light from the fireplace gleamed on the silvery blade. "She's so lovely to you…despite her scars. Why? Shall I put that fondness for her face to the test? Shall I see how you'd feel if I ruined that lovely face completely?" The knife lashed out, a flash of silver, and a crimson line ripped across Dylan's cheek. She screamed, sobbed as memories burned through her.

"Don't! Stop it!" Nuada roared. He remembered the ruin of her face the night he'd met her, the blood smearing her bruised cheeks, the pain of the knife-slashes. Eamonn's arm lashed out and another slash appeared on Dylan's face. Her scream ripped through Nuada's heart. "Leave her alone, damn you! _Ná__dteagmháil__léi_—don't touch her!"

Eamonn scoffed at the prince. "You're pathetic. Luckily I'll not have to deal with your pitiful sentiment much longer. I have a gift for you, Silverlance." The two flasks Eamonn had set on Dylan's nightstand when he'd first arrived were still there; Eamonn lifted it up, pulled the stopper. Sniffed the contents. Grinned viciously. "I don't dare try to force you to swallow this, as I forced your little _f__raoch__ú__n_. You've too much muscle on me. My luck is in, however—I needn't have you drink the gancanaugh poison. I only need to pour it on you."

He bit out through clenched teeth, "Poison from a gancanaugh male will do nothing to me." A rich, dark laugh in response made Nuada grind his teeth so hard he thought he might crack a molar. "_Feicfidh mé tú a mharú_."

"You'll kill me? I doubt it," Eamonn replied. "And this isn't the poison I used on your little darling. This is from a female gancanaugh of my acquaintance. I think you'll enjoy the results."

Nuada's eyes widened. For the first time, true fear glimmered in their depths. "No. Eamonn, no. Please. I know what you're thinking of, you _cannot!_ Eamonn, don't!"

Pale lips curved into a smirk. "I promised her that you would be the one to take her first." With another dark laugh, he splashed a dollop of the poison in Nuada's face. The venom spattered his flesh, burning instantly. Flooded his mouth. Nuada spat, desperate to rid himself of the Tears, and knew it would do no good. Already the pain was scalding him, ripping through him. The fire raked over his body; he shuddered at the sudden throbbing ache. Another splash of poison hit his chest. He heard the sound of liquid splashing from far off, heard Dylan scream.

Agony dragged him down, shredding him until he could think of nothing, see and feel and hear nothing. White-hot talons tore into his belly, clawed lower toward his groin. Nuada panted for breath. No, no, no…no, he couldn't…he could _not_…but then the pain drowned out his thoughts, strangled them until he could focus only on the need searing him.

Then there was sudden slack in the ropes binding him. He fell to his hands and knees. A scent hit his nostrils; they flared, desperate for that scent. Woman. Heat. Desire. Female flesh. His skin crawled with the need for that flesh, the mad craving to touch, smell, taste. He lunged. Pain spread in a sheet of fire down his back. He ignored it, reaching, straining for...straining…straining…

Touch. Satin, cool and sweet and smooth. Flesh. Warm. Fragile. He wrapped his hand around a wrist, felt the roughness of abrasions, the sting of human blood. The ache washed it all away. Delicate wrist, small bones, so delicate. His hands slid up over an arm, a shoulder, his fingers tangled in silken hair, then his mouth found a mouth, sweet and bitter both. Blood in the kiss, lips parting, a moan into his mouth, tangle of tongues, a slender body against his. Cupping her cheek, such fragile bones, sliding down, cupping the soft weight of her breast. She moaned again, arched into his touch. Need, need, gods he _needed_ her. Taste her lips, taste her skin, taste her, take her, he had to, _he had to_.

He was thinking only of scent, touch, taste, when he grasped the flimsy front of her nightgown and ripped it down the middle. Such sweet skin, had to taste, had to drink her in. Slender fingers tangled in his hair, guiding him. His tongue swirled hot over her skin, leaving her gasping. His fingers curled into the elastic band of undergarment at her hip, ripped it away with a jerk. She cried out, lifted her hips in silent plea. Her hands went to the waistband of his trews. Yes, yes, by the Fates, yes…

His hands slid over her smooth belly, her thighs, caressed ragged scars. She cried out again, writhed for him, oh, gods. His fingers found her, delved, she was so _ready_ for him, he couldn't stop, couldn't wait. Vaguely through the poisonous haze of brutal cancerous need, he heard her begging frantically, "Please, please, please, please."

But no…no, this was wrong, he couldn't…couldn't…she didn't want…but she _begged_ him…she wanted him to…couldn't think, couldn't breathe, had to, the pain…gods, the pain, the ache, had to make it stop, make it stop for them both, make it _stop!_

"Please," Dylan whispered, pressing against him, her voice trembling. Her hands roamed over his shoulders, caressed the taut muscles of his arms as he held himself poised above her. That touch left him nearly mindless with the wicked need to claim her. And then…oh, and then…she whispered so softly, so sweetly, "Please…_Nuada_."

His name on her lips, that breathy plea, shattered the fragments of his control. Nuada took her mouth, his tongue thrusting deep as he drove into her with single-minded savagery. Dylan gasped into the kiss. Her body welcomed him, took him, surrendered to him. And he lost himself in her, in the heat and feel and overwhelming desire that kept him locked to her, until there was nothing but the woman beneath him, her need, his need, this unending, all-encompassing _need_…and in the distance, as if from far away, the dark and cruel sound of laughter.

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_**Author's Note:**__ wow. So I've never done something like that before, and it's been over…6 years since I've written any kind of serious intimacy scenes. I tried to keep it tasteful. How'd I do? What do you guys think will happen now? Of course I know what will happen, but what do you guys think will happen? Hmmm? And are you happy now, Sweetnsour333, now that chapter 5 is up? Lol. Huggles to you, dearest, for the well-timed nagging. I'm grateful._

_Reviews are love! Hugs and love to everyone,_

_LA_


	6. What I've Done

_**Author's Note:**__ so I've been feeling sick lately, and unless I'm like, dying of zombie plague, writing tends to make me feel better when I'm sick. So I've got the next chapter up. It's 4 days early (I was aiming for June 1st) but I didn't feel like waiting. So…yeah. Oh, and the chapter title comes from a song by Linkin Park that I like a lot. Enjoy the chap! Warning—angst and darkness and grief ahead, of course. And emotional turmoil. Also rape (duh). I don't think I need to tell you guys that, but just to be safe…_

_._

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**Chapter Six**

**What I've Done**

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Nuada awoke what felt like centuries later, every inch of his body aching with fatigue. Something soft and thick crushed against his cheek. Carpet? He shifted his body and agony exploded across his back. Hot wetness dripped down his spine and tickled along his ribs, and he realized his half-healed lashes had somehow reopened. How? Where _was_ he?

When he tried to shift again, the prince realized his hands were tightly bound in front of him. Another cautious movement informed him that his feet were also bound, tied to something heavy to prevent any possible escape. A vile taste coated the inside of his mouth. His skin itched in places, as if it had been smeared with mud that had been left to dry. Lines of soft fire burned along his arms, shoulders, and across his hips. And if he wasn't mistaken, his trousers were undone and hung loose around his hips. He was trying to remember what had happened when he heard the weeping.

One golden eye, having been glued shut with sleep, cracked open. He scanned the fire-lit chamber, which included a massive oak dresser—the thing his feet were tied to—as well as a nightstand, three shut doors, and a _very_ large four-poster bed covered in what appeared to be Elven rope and mussed blankets. The room fairly _reeked_ of musk and pain and human blood.

Then Nuada's gaze registered the figure huddled on the bed, crying softly into a pillow. She was slender, pale as a corpse, her raggedly-chopped dark hair covering her face—_That monster cut her hair_, he thought without quite understanding the words. _Why?_—so that Nuada only caught glimpses of cruel bruises. Only a short, ripped white t-shirt and a pair of black panties covered her nakedness. Marks painted her body: vicious fingerprints covering her arms, her legs, her shaking hands, what little he could see of her neck; raw puce and cerise love-bites marred her delicate skin; ragged scrapes abraded her pale knees and the tops of her shins; and three brutal, bloodied actual _bites_ had punctured the abused flesh around her collarbones.

Memory came rushing back to him, and he nearly retched as bile surged up in his throat and shame threatened to choke him. Flashes of sensation caressed his mind—her smooth, warm flesh beneath his hands; her nails raking over his shoulders and digging into his biceps as ecstasy swept her away; the way she'd begged him never to stop; the caress of her hair whispering over his heated skin—and the memories stirred the dregs of the poison in his veins.

How many times had he taken her? How many times had they twined together, taking half-insane pleasure from each other, while Eamonn looked on and laughed? He couldn't remember; only remembered he hadn't been able to stop…

Oh, gods, what had he done to that poor girl? He'd raped an innocent woman…barely a woman, more of a maiden…Shades of Annwn, she was barely more than a _child_ compared to him. And he'd raped her not once, or twice, or even thrice, but countless times. Those bruises, those cruel marks on her skin, they were from _him_. He risked a glance down and saw blood—mortal blood, once red as holly berries, now dried and darkened to a rusty red—smeared on the skin of his lower belly, and even lower, on his—

His gorge rose again as he shut his eyes. _Danu's mercy,_ he thought, fighting the urge to be sick. _By the stars, I never meant…I never wanted to harm her, never. What have I done? After what those human wolves did to her, and Eamonn, now I've…what have I done? Shades, what have I_ done?

"Dylan…" Her name spilled unintentionally from his lips like a plea, and the weeping stuttered to a halt. Nuada dared to look toward her and saw with a thrill of something akin to shock that she was _looking back_ at him. Her fey-like blue eyes were wet with tears, shadowed with pain and the echoes of terror. Shame clawed at him. What had he _done_ to her? "Oh, gods, forgive me, please forgive me."

She frowned and swiped gingerly at the tears on her cheeks. Nuada saw her hands were bound to the posts at the head of the bed, with enough slack in the ropes to give her some freedom of movement. The flesh that showed above and below the ropes was chafed bloody. "F-F-Forgive you?"

He swallowed, loathing himself. Of course she would be incredulous at the very idea. Of course he was mad to ask it of her. He'd _raped_ her, for the gods' pity. But the thought of Dylan despising him for the very crime he'd been wrongfully flogged for left him…gutted. He couldn't bear it. Simply could _not_.

"I know…I know I do not deserve…will never deserve…I know I have wronged you, I…but may the gods strike me down if I lie, Dylan, I never wanted to…I never…"

What was the use of begging like a whipped dog for her clemency? His body gave lie to his words, anyway. The sight of her—bruised though she was—with those long, scarred legs bare and the collar of her t-shirt torn to reveal hints of too-enticing flesh, was enough to wake the poison in his blood with a vengeance. Every muscle in his body tightened, ached. The breath strangled in his lungs. He shuddered.

Through clenched teeth, Nuada whispered, "I swear to you, Dylan…I swear on the Darkness That Eats All Things, I will free you from Eamonn. And when he is dead, I will give you recompense for the wrongs I have done you."

"Your Highness…I don't want—"

"Ahhh, you're both awake and aware once more, I see," Eamonn said jovially, stepping out of what Nuada realized was a bathing room. His hair hung damp and unbound and a few drops of water still clung to his skin. Other than the hair and the water, he was completely nude. Bites and scratches marred the moon-paleness of his flesh. He didn't seem to mind them.

With a mocking wink to Nuada and an airy, "You'll have to wait your turn, Silverlance," he strode to where Dylan lay on the bed. She scrambled back from him, but not quickly enough. He caught her by the hair and hauled her to her knees, forcing her to accept a throat-swabbing kiss that almost made her choke. His hand clamped down on Dylan's breast through the thin t-shirt with enough force that she cried out in pain. Eamonn kissed her once more before dropping her back to the mattress.

He didn't give her time to even catch her breath before he slapped her hard enough to make her see stars, pinned her, yanked off her panties, and shoved his knee between her thighs. She thrashed, flailed, but the ropes impeded her. Nuada tried to lunge to his feet as Eamonn slapped her again, but his own bonds and the damage done to his back dragged him to the floor again. Eamonn struck Dylan twice more. Nuada saw her fall limp. Snarling, he lunged against his ropes, but he was too weak from poison and blood-loss and pain to do more than struggle futilely for a few minutes before collapsing to the floor again. Eamonn glanced at the prince over his shoulder.

"You were much keener on sharing her when you were drugged," the dark Elf complained. "Perhaps I'll dose you again, now that we've both had a little sleep. Oh, don't you remember?" Eamonn added, leering at the horror on Nuada's face. "Don't you remember the two of us taking her together, your harlot caught between us, begging for more? Or those times you had her on her knees while she serviced me with that lovely mouth? And then there were those times when we switched it up somewhat, and you had her mouth at _your_ service. Remember? Remember your little _f__raoch__ú__n_ on her knees, your fingers tangled in her hair, while she obeyed your every command?"

"You're lying," the Elven warrior whispered, almost pleading. He couldn't have done that to her. Couldn't have forced her to accept such attentions…but he remembered the raw flesh on Dylan's knees and shins. Rug-burn, he realized with sick hate and self-loathing. And he remembered with vivid and brutal clarity the feel of Dylan's mouth like paradise…Rage crystallized, vicious and cold, within the prince. He bared his teeth. "You son of a _bitch_."

Eamonn smirked. "Don't fret—the little whore enjoyed herself." He grasped her thighs, spread them. She moaned softly; Nuada could tell she was still dazed, barely conscious after Eamonn's blows. Eamonn slid his hands under her thighs and lifted them, shoved up her knees, leaving her open to him, so terribly vulnerable. "And she's going to enjoy herself now. And you're going to watch, Silverlance, and see how a real man uses a whore."

"_Ná__tú __dteagmháil__léi_—don't you touch her!" Nuada roared. "I'll kill you! I'll kill you, do you hear me? _A fháil amach óna_—get away from her! Damn you, Eamonn, _get away from her!_" But though he raged at the Elf of Zwezda, vowing to kill him—and to make his death _last_, by the gods, until every last drop of pain had been wrung from his pathetic carcass—it wasn't enough to stop him, to drown out Eamonn's obscene groans of twisted pleasure or Dylan's whimpers and moans. And he raped her more than once. Eamonn had an Elf's stamina, and he exhausted it with a weeping, struggling Dylan.

Hours later, once he'd sated his sexual appetite, he forced Nuada to watch as the other Elf thoroughly and methodically beat her until blood leaked from her mouth and trickled from her nose, until she could no longer lift a hand in even a vain attempt to fend Eamonn off. That took hours as well; long enough, in fact, for Eamonn to regain his strength so that he could rape her again, repeatedly, with the same thorough brutality.

When he was finally finished with her, he loosened her bonds and hauled her off the bed, uncaring of how the ropes dragged at her hands and wrenched her arms, and he threw Dylan in front of Nuada. She struck the floor with a bone-jarring _thud_. Without thinking, Nuada crossed the few inches that separated them, gathered her close as well as he could with his hands tied. Dylan pressed her face into his belly and curled herself around him, shaking. The stench of the blood smearing her thighs sickened and enraged the Bethmooran Elf.

"If you come near her again," Nuada growled, his voice so low and savage he sounded like a wild beast, "I will rip you apart with my bare hands, do you hear me? I will tear out your heart."

A sneer twisted the Elf's pale lips. "So gallant. So sweet. Does it hurt you to see me with her, Silverlance? Taking my pleasure in her? Because that's the point, you know. Her pain. Your suffering. I want each moment she suffers to eat at your guts like drops of acid. I want you to know—to _know_—that I am hurting her, beating her, raping her, sodomizing her, and eventually that I will _kill_ her, the woman you love. I do all of this to her…because of _you_. And I want that knowledge to sit in your soul until it sickens and dies from the grief and the shame of it. And my, my, think of this—what will your _father_ say about what you've done? Especially after what happened to your poor mother?"

Eamonn turned on his heel and stalked into the bathroom. Nuada focused on Dylan, desperately struggling to suppress the sick horror at Eamonn's words about his father, as well as his body's awareness that the mortal in his arms was almost completely naked, pressed against him when _he_ was half-naked, and the gancanaugh venom still coursed sluggishly through both their veins.

Hell's teeth, Eamonn had known exactly what he was doing when he beat her. Bruises, blood spilled, lacerations…but no broken bones, no permanent damage. Just as much pain as possible without such drastic results.

The same could not be said for Dylan's brownie. Becan lay practically motionless, breathing wetly, in his glass-jar prison. Every so often he coughed weakly, a gurgling sound that made Nuada fear for the wee fae's life. How much damage had Eamonn inflicted on the house-sprite? Nuada couldn't be certain, and if he and Dylan didn't escape from this trap quickly, the brownie could very well die.

Then again, how long did any of them have to live? Until Eamonn tired of his sick games and killed them all…

"How badly are you hurt?" Nuada whispered to the trembling woman in his arms.

Dylan mumbled her answer—which was, "Not much; it'll heal. I'll live."—against his skin, tickling and caressing him with her breath. The dull ache in his loins grew worse. He clenched his teeth and forced himself to ignore it, as well as the strange, tugging-tickling feeling against his wrists.

"Will you be all right?" It was an inane and pointless question, and the answer was clear, but it soothed him when she nodded anyway; she still had a little of that spirit he remembered from the first three moons of their acquaintance. "Do you…require any tending?" He didn't know how he would be able to tend to her injuries when she wore practically nothing and his body was screaming at him to claim her…but what else could he do but offer his aid when she was hurt so badly?

She shook her head. Her hair whispered over his belly, over his hips, over his…

He sucked in a hissing breath and tried to push the sensation away. "Can you get at my bonds?" Nuada asked, then realized the odd tugging sensation he'd felt_—_which he'd also ignored—was actually Dylan fumbling at the knots. The ropes scraped her fingers, ripping open tiny cuts across her already-bruised skin.

"Ow," she whispered. "I don't know if I can…my hands keep shaking. Everything's dancing. I…" She stopped, struggling for breath, her entire body quivering with exhaustion. Nuada saw her fingertips were already raw and bloody. "Something's wrong with me…everything's fuzzy…"

Nuada cursed. She was too weak to go searching for wherever Eamonn had stashed his weapons, and too weak to attempt flight. At the moment, after vainly struggling with the cords binding him, all she could do was lie there and pant for breath. Had Eamonn been feeding her? Letting her sleep? Nuada doubted it. She looked half-dead.

"Do you know how long I've been unconscious?" Nuada asked, shifting so she could lean against him. Her breath was warm and soft against the vixen-scratches on his bicep. Need whispered through his veins; he fought to suppress it.

"A little longer than me," she whispered. "Six or seven hours, I think. Before that, we…we were…"

"Yes. For hours," he replied, voice still low. His body stirred at the memory of her legs wrapped tightly about his hips, her spine bowed as he drowned her in pleasure, her sweet kitten cries…Nuada barely suppressed a shudder. "I know. I remember—" Some things _very_ vividly, but others…"Vaguely. Did I…did I hurt you very badly, Dylan?"

She shook her head. The ragged curtain of her hair caressed like silk and he nearly groaned. Somehow, she seemed not to notice. "I'm not hurt," she mumbled.

"You are," he insisted softly. "I know it. I…there was blood, Dylan. Not virgin's blood or moon's blood, either. I hurt you. Do not lie to me in some inane attempt to shield me from the bitterness of the truth. How badly are you hurt? Are you still bleeding?"

"It doesn't matter," she protested. "_You're_ hurt."

He scoffed. "I confess to being surprised you even care." She didn't reply. Only stiffened, trembling hard again, when Eamonn came back into the room from the bathroom. He was still nude, which didn't bode well for them, but he didn't rouse at the sight of Dylan's barely-clad form. Perhaps he was too tired. Nuada tightened his grip on her fractionally anyway.

"I want to try a little experiment, Silverlance," the silver-eyed Elf murmured, smiling a little. He kept one hand behind his back. "Your little tart has the Tears in her blood still, though not so strongly, and she must be in quite a bit of pain. After all, you were anything but gentle with her. Like a dog sniffing after a bitch in heat, actually. Yet your whore didn't seem to mind. I have to wonder…if I poisoned you again…and you _raped her_ again—oh, don't cringe, Silverlance; you know you've been castigating yourself this whole time for ravishing your little tidbit without any finesse or tenderness—would she enjoy it as much as she did last time?"

Something black and savage surged through Nuada's veins. He tasted the quicksilver sweetness of his own blood on his tongue as he clenched his teeth. "I _will_ see you in Hell, Eamonn."

"Only traitors go to Hell, Silverlance," Eamonn replied congenially. "When my master kills your father and sister, you'll be there to welcome them."

Nuada stiffened. "What did you say?"

"Now tell the truth, Your Highness—you enjoyed pillaging _those_ gates, didn't you?" The dark-haired Elf tipped his head toward Dylan. "I just gave you a shove. You just needed a bit of courage to deflower your precious little virgin. You should be thanking me. After all, you relished taking her. I was there, Silverlance. I _saw_ it."

A low snarl rumbled in Nuada's chest. When he tried to lunge for Eamonn, fresh agony raked across his back. A scream of pain strangled in his throat.

"Don't you remember, Silverlance?" The other Elf continued to taunt him. "Don't you remember how she spread her legs for you? The way she offered you…everything? Oh, and you took it. She begged you for more and you gave it to her. You savored every moment, didn't you? Do you remember how it felt to bury yourself deep inside her? Do you remember her cries?"

"Shut up," Nuada hissed as his body responded to the words, to the vile memories they conjured. He shuddered, tremors racking his frame, slamming him with pain from his back. "_Shut up!_"

Eamonn's smile was coldly amused. "You remember her beneath you, but do you remember her above you? I watched her, Silverlance. I watched her ride you like a wild horse to the taming and drive you over the edge again and again, and you were helpless to prevent her. Helpless to do anything but let her have you. In a way, you're just as much a whore as she is. Have you ever thought of that?"

And without warning, he whipped his hand out from behind his back. Something burning cold splashed over Nuada, slipped past his lips; soaked his hair and his trews, dripped down his chest to pit-pat against Dylan's chest. It filled his veins and his mind with fiery ice so that he shuddered like a wild horse readying to bolt.

But he had nowhere to go. Nowhere to go, and only one thing to do—cover Dylan's mouth with his, ravishing her mouth even as he thrust her to the ground, spread her thighs with mindless urgency, and ravished her vulnerable body, losing himself once more in the hellish paradise of her, all the while drowning in Eamonn's laughter and Dylan's screams.

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_**Author's Note:**__ of course Nuada's not going to escape from this little field trip to Hell without some emotional and psychological damage. But since this isn't angst for the sake of angst (or darkness for the sake of darkness), the pace will pick up in the next chapter (no pun intended). What do you guys think will happen, hmmm? Remember, reviews are love, of course. Hugs to everyone!_


	7. Blood in the Water

_**Author's Note:**__ so here we are with the next chapter of Moonless. Because this chapter is really dark and depressing, I'm also posting the next chapter, which is a lot…erm…less depressing, I think. Less torturous, at any rate. So I hope you guys enjoy this chap and let me know what you think, yeah?_

_Loves to you all!_

_._

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**Chapter Seven**

**Blood in the Water**

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It went on seemingly for days. Nuada tried to keep track as dawn broke, then night fell, then sunrise came again, before dusk descended upon them. But the hours blurred together, smeared by the fog of Branwen's Tears and carnal pleasure, agonizing pain and long hours of unconsciousness after he'd spent himself with Eamonn's mortal prisoner. Had he been trapped in this cottage—in this room—for five days? Six? A week? Longer?

It felt like longer. He _thought_ it was longer. How long could Dylan survive what he and Eamonn were doing to her? She was so terribly thin; he could see the bluish bruise-like shadows of her ribcage against her pale skin. She'd become so white, from lack of sunshine and loss of blood. That terrible paleness showed between the splotches of dark bruises scattered across her slender body. She scarcely had the strength to move at times. How long could she survive the onslaught of the venomous Tears?

Rousing himself from another bout of unconsciousness, Nuada peered at Dylan through bleary eyes as Eamonn lifted her up and carried her toward the bathing room. Her thin, pale arms were around his neck and she was kissing him almost desperately even as tears spilled like liquid crystal down her thin cheeks. Had the dark Elf even let her eat anything before dosing her this time?

Sometimes he did. He would feed her enough to keep her alive after forcing her—without the numbing effect of the gancanaugh poison—to do…_things_ according to his whims. Service him with her mouth, her body. Service Nuada, who was never allowed to fully throw off the poison. It was worse, though, when the Tears held him only partially in thrall, because then he could see the frantic horror in her gaze, the tears cutting her eyes like cold diamonds, the way she had to steel herself to touch him while her entire body trembled with revulsion and fear. And if the Elven prince rejected her touch, as he'd managed to do once…

Eamonn had reached new heights of brutality to punish the mortal for "failing to rouse" the prince. Nuada had been sick with fear that his pitiless enemy would actually _kill_ Dylan before Nuada's very eyes, and he would be unable to do anything but watch, bound and helpless to save her. He _hadn't_ killed her, but only because Nuada had begged him…

**.**

"Please," the crown prince had pled, straining against his bonds. "_Dean trócaire!_ Eamonn, _trócaire_—mercy! For Danu's sake, show some mercy! Stop! Stop, you'll kill her! Stop, I beg you!"

_The silver-eyed Elf, breathing heavily, had glanced over at the prince. He'd held Dylan __by the throat, limp as a ragdoll. Blood had smeared her face and thighs. She had gasped for air, a terrified panting that had seemed to exhaust what energy she'd had left after this latest in a long string of brutal rapes and beatings. A sneer had twisted Eamonn's features. He'd dropped Dylan to the floor; she'd lain there in a heap without moving. The dark Elf had turned, still panting for breath, and stalked toward Nuada with mad hatred blazing in his eyes._

_"You_ beg _me? Beg me for_ her? _You pathetic wretch," he'd snarled, backhanding Nuada savagely across the face. The prince had tasted the fey sweetness of his own blood. "She's a human! She's_ the enemy! Damn _you, Silverlance, why did you betray us? Why do you care for her? You should have snapped her neck the night you met her!" Half-insane with fury, Eamonn had turned on his heel. "I'll do it, seeing as you're too weak. I'll break her neck right now." He'd taken a single step toward Dylan, vibrating with rage. "It will be so easy…like snapping a twig. Or better yet…"_

_"No! Eamonn, you cannot! Please! Eamonn, for the gods' pity, please_! Ná, impigh mé leat_—don't, __I beg you! Don't, please! Don't!_ Eamonn!"

_But all his frantic pleas had seemed to be for naught. Eamonn had straddled Dylan's prone body and curled his long fingers around her neck. His breathing had quickened, his arousal at the thought of killing her plain enough. With a low snarl, those long fingers had tightened around the vulnerable neck. Dylan had tried to gasp, tried to struggle, but she'd been too weak. Her feeble attempts to push Eamonn away had wrung Nuada's heart._

_That cruel grip had tightened, Dylan's breath had gurgled in her throat, and slowly—so terribly slowly—the blood had suffused her pale face, her heels had drummed helplessly against the floor, and her hands had fluttered like dying birds to the carpet. Those beautiful blue eyes had bulged from her skull as Eamonn had slowly, viciously begun to throttle the life from her._

_"No!_ No! Eamonn, **no!**_" Nuada had found himself sobbing, hot tears streaming down his face as he'd strained to reach for Dylan, struggled vainly to save her. "Gods, please, don't! Please, please…Eamonn, please…please…" Nuada had wept. "_Stop it…**please…**_**"**_

_And miraculously, Eamonn had stopped. He'd stared at Nuada with disgusted fascination before getting to his feet, spitting on Dylan's prone body, and stalking into the bathroom to take a shower. Dylan had lain on the carpet, gasping for air, while Nuada shuddered and the tears continued to scald his cheeks._

_Then…a small sound of pain. The prince of Bethmoora had watched, jerking on his bonds in a futile attempt to draw closer, as Dylan somehow found the strength to drag herself to him. She fell at last to the floor before him, panting and weeping silently, and Nuada had finagled around the ropes enough to lift her into his arms and hold her against his chest, his cheek against her hair. Dylan's hand had touched his chest, light as the flutter of butterfly wings, before falling back to her belly._

_"It's all right now," he'd whispered inanely. He couldn't stop the tears stinging his eyes; they fell onto her face, into her mouth, mingled with her own cold tears. "It's all righ__t_, mo bheag amháin_—my little one__. I have you. It's all right, I have you now_. Tá brón orm, _Dylan. __Oh, gods, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Dammit, Dylan, I'm so sorry. I'__m so very sorry, little one."_

_A touch on his cheek from trembling fingers. He'd squeezed his eyes shut, wondering suddenly if he'd died at some point and the gods had sent him to Hell for his past sins. Was this Hell—watching an innocent woman being raped and tortured by his enemy, unable to put a stop to it? Dylan had stroked his cheek. Whispered something. Nuada had lifted his head to peer down at her, at her poor bloodied face._

_"What?"_

_"It's okay," she'd rasped. "It's…okay. We'll get out. 'Kay?"_

_Pressing his cheek to her hair again, he'd gritted his teeth and swore to her, "Yes. Yes, we will. I swear it."_

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Nuada came back to himself as Dylan made a soft sound of protest. Sometimes, more often over the last few days, she and Nuada had found moments of weakness in the merciless grip of the poison, and they'd managed to hold onto themselves for a few brief moments. It never lasted long enough to resist the siren call of carnal joining, however. It only heightened the strain on both of them. The Tuathan prince wondered how long it would be before his sanity broke.

Eamonn didn't even bother to hit her. He merely grabbed her chin in his fist, making it very clear that he could crush her jaw if he pressed hard enough, and forced her to accept another violating kiss. Whatever moment of clarity and freedom Dylan had found from the Tears disappeared under his onslaught. He slammed her against the doorframe, his hands clutching greedily at her bare breasts. Nuada knew Eamonn's grip would leave more bruises. Dylan's skin was already covered in dark fingerprints.

Of course the prince knew that Eamonn didn't care how badly Dylan was hurt, so long as she was still useable for his pleasure. In fact, the sadistic Elf seemed to derive as much if not more pleasure from beating her as he did from raping her. Sometimes he would flog her with a length of knotted rope, forcing her to count the strokes aloud; if she lost count or missed a stroke, the torture would start again. Her humiliating submission always served to excite him. If she protested any of his demands when attempting to barter, he used that hand-fashioned whip on her.

She'd refused to give into him at first, refused to barter her body for food, until Eamonn had told her that if _she_ didn't eat, neither did Nuada or Becan. Everything they needed—the sparse food and water he allowed them, bathroom necessities—had to be paid for with Dylan's body, with her humiliation and pain.

And Eamonn was doing it all to punish _him_.

Just as he was pinning Dylan against the doorframe to force himself on her again, to punish Nuada for something he hadn't even done. He hadn't fallen in love with a human, hadn't bedded one—at the time—and hadn't betrayed his people. Would _never_ betray his people.

_Damn you, Eamonn_, Nuada thought while the edge of the metal doorjamb sliced a crimson line in Dylan's hip that dripped blood onto the floor. _Damn you. I'll kill you. I'll kill you for this if it is the last thing I ever do on this earth._

Nuada indulged in the litany whenever he was clearheaded enough to think of something besides the innocent woman he'd used like a whore-doll for the last however many days; he focused on his rage, his hate, to drown out the rhythm of Eamonn's violation, Dylan's cries of pleasure/pain, her weeping. The sounds of it all nearly drove him mad if he let it. He owed her a debt, damn his own soul, and yet he was one of the twin sources of her suffering. Eamonn had chosen his so-called revenge _very_ well.

The Tuathan prince heard Eamonn's breathing speed up, grow ragged. The vicious thudding from across the room increased in tempo. Dylan sobbed—whether with pain or with need, even Nuada couldn't tell. The prince didn't dare close his eyes. If Eamonn caught him _not_ watching what he did to Dylan…it would be a thousand times worse for them both. He'd already learned that. The dark Elf had demonstrated the contrivance he'd come up with for dislocating Dylan's shoulders as the initial punishment when Nuada had sought some peace by shutting his eyes against the sight of Eamonn sodomizing the innocent, inexperienced girl. Then Eamonn had given Nuada a beating of his own, focusing on his lash-raw back. The prince could've endured the beating…but not Dylan's agonized screams.

Impotent rage and despair twined together in Nuada before tightening in his throat, almost like a noose, as the rape in the bathroom doorway ended with a satisfied groan from Eamonn. The Elf of Zwezda leaned in and kissed the mortal. Growled, "Oh, good girl" when she didn't try to shove him away, but merely endured it with her eyes squeezed shut. He shoved her into the bathroom. Leaving the door open so Nuada could watch, he lifted her onto the counter. Moved between her legs. He wasn't finished with her by any stretch.

Agonized eyes, a thin ring of glazed blue circling impossibly-wide pupil—an effect of the Tears—met Nuada's over Eamonn's shoulder. Her drug-influenced body met the dark Elf's every violating thrust, but Nuada's gut churned and twisted at the revulsion and desperation in Dylan's eyes. She was trapped in that enslaved shell, unable even to deny Eamonn with vain struggles. Nuada could _see_ that her sanity teetered on the brink of shattering, perhaps at any moment. He tried to convey his rage in his eyes, his disgust with Eamonn, his hatred; tried to communicate to her that he _would_ get her out of this place or die trying. Crystal tears spilled from her eyes and Dylan dropped her head to Eamonn's shoulder.

Bestial grunts, growls of pleasure, and another groan signaled the end of Eamonn's diversion. He kissed Dylan hard enough to draw a few tiny rivulets of blood from her bruised, swollen lips. Then he gave her a rough push further into the bathing room. Moments later, the shower came on.

Nuada knew what would happen next. Eamonn would shove Dylan beneath the water, shut the shower door, and seal it with magic to keep her from leaving. Then he would hit Nuada with enough Branwen's Tears to leave him insensible to anything but woman's flesh, force a few mouthfuls of the stuff down his throat so the shower wouldn't alleviate the effects, and watch him crawl toward the bathing room—and Dylan—in order to ease his craving. The dark Elf had done it twice before this. Nuada supposed it was the only way for Eamonn to keep either the prince or the mortal clean enough to suit him.

_I'm going to kill him for you, Dylan,_ Nuada thought as Eamonn proceeded to do just as Nuada had anticipated. Even as the dark Elf forced several swallows of Branwen's Tears into his mouth, the rage burned through him, and he swore silently, _I'll kill him for you, little one. I swear it on my mother's memory_—_I'll kill him for you. And then you may carve out my heart if you require the satisfaction for what I've done to you…what I'm about to do to you._

Except that this time, there was that difference again. He could feel it, somehow…just a slight shift. And it didn't slip away from him after a few seconds, either.

Had Eamonn miscalculated? Given him less of the Tears than usual? Or was Nuada becoming slightly immune from the constant exposure? For it was almost—_almost_—possible to keep his mind clear. Real thoughts swam through the haze of fury and hatred and fierce lust, quick as minnows in a stream.

And when the deliciously hot water from the shower pounded down on his body, sending needles of searing pain through his raw back and washing the poison from his skin, for the first time Nuada found himself able to actually _think_ somewhat rationally while Dylan came into his arms, slippery as a mermaid. And when she kissed him, grasping for him as if he would disappear at any moment, he felt the difference in _her_, too. They were both a little more themselves than they'd ever been since the start of their captivity. Perhaps it was the pain. Perhaps it _was_ immunity after all. And perhaps they could…no…could they? Could they possibly…

There was a small, pink plastic disposable razor on one of the shower shelves. Nuada pinned Dylan to the slick white-tiled wall, holding her in place with his body, struggling to focus on what he was trying to do…but it was so hard, she was so warm, so lovely. Her body was _so_ eager. Her skin were slick with water; the dark, ragged, glossy silk of Dylan's hair hung in damp tendrils around her slender neck and against her pale cheeks.

Shades of Annwn, he _wanted_ her. When she twined her leg around his hip and pressed to him, showing him how very _ready_ she was, he nearly came undone. He gripped her hip with his right hand, shoving his other hand against the slick shower wall. Unable to help himself, he slid his right hand down over her hip, smoothing it along the thigh pressed against him. The thick white scar on her inner thigh caressed his skin, stoked the fire in his belly.

Poisonous Tears blazed through him, dragging his head down to kiss her desperately—oh, gods, sweet Fates, he _ached_ to have her, she was pressed so close—but instead of claiming her, he kissed her. Kissed her slowly, longingly, as if there was nothing else he could ever want, even as he ground his hips against her, making Dylan cry out against his mouth. And as he shifted her with one hand, his other hand seemed to flail blindly at the wall beside her opposite hip, swiping bottles of shampoo and soaps to the floor…and allowing him to catch hold of the seven-inch piece of plastic.

He reached between them, hiding the hopeful weapon with his body from Eamonn. In a moment, the dark Elf would insist on having Dylan between himself and Nuada, insist on "sharing" her. When that moment came, Nuada would be able to kill him. It would have to be quick—stars curse it—but Eamonn would still be dead. But only if he could make this small implement into a weapon. How could he do that without his captor hearing the sharp _crack_ of him snapping off one end to make a jagged point?

Dylan's hand found the base of his throat, slid down over the wall of his chest, tracing the contours of muscle. Her mouth followed, lips catching droplets of water along the thin scars on his chest. He shuddered, groaned. He couldn't _think_ when she did that, not with the poison urging him to take her amidst the heat and water and steam. The slow undulation of her hips didn't help anything, either. He couldn't—

She grasped the razor and twisted slightly. The inch-long plastic razor-end popped off, leaving a thin, rather poky piece at the end. Eyes of molten bronze met a gaze of fey-like blue and abyssal black. Dylan's pupils were so wide they nearly swallowed the blue, but Nuada could see that she'd had the same thought as he. Eamonn would die. He would die now, today, in but a few moments, and the two of them would be free at last.

"My turn, Silverlance," Eamonn growled softly. Nuada could just _see_ the cruel smirk on his face, even without looking. Rage pumped hot through the prince's veins. His turn? His _turn?_

Nuada buried his face against Dylan's neck, licking droplets of water from her skin, as if he were too entranced to notice anything else. She moaned his name and dropped her head back against the wall. He loved Dylan's neck, loved the long smooth column of it, the way she arched into him when he nibbled and sucked the flesh over her fluttering pulse.

But he had to focus, stars curse it. His large hand nearly swallowed the pink razor handle. His eyes met Dylan's again. _Wait for it,_ he commanded while his blood burned in his veins, urging him to forget this silly ploy and go about the business of spilling his seed in her body. He bit his tongue so that blood spilled into his mouth, allowing him to think a bit more clearly. _Wait for it, little one,_ Nuada reassured her silently, _and he's ours._

Finally, when Eamonn stepped right up to him, laying a revolting hand on an undamaged portion of his shoulder to turn him from Dylan, Nuada finally lashed out.

With a lightning-strike motion that sent agony through his back, Nuada twisted around and plunged the sharp end of the razor handle into Eamonn's silver cat-eye. The Elf of Zwezda shrieked and threw himself backward, staggering out of the shower into the bathroom. Nuada stumbled after him, blood sheeting down his back.

Dylan darted out and around the prince, quick as a pouncing cat, and she slammed into Eamonn with all her strength. The Elf struck his head on the corner of the bathroom counter, falling to his hands and knees. Blood dripped from a gash in his forehead. He scrabbled madly at the counter, finding _both_ bottles of Tears, and managed to throw them at the Elf prince and the mortal. The contents splashed over their skin before the bottles dropping to the floor, where the poison gushed from the bottles over their feet. Both Dylan and Nuada recoiled as if from acid.

It was a quick and clever ploy to buy Eamonn some time, but even as the effects were beginning to sink in, searing and scalding with knives of ice, Dylan launched herself after Eamonn as he tried to crawl out of the bathroom, clutching at his ruined eye. She knocked him to the carpet and raked him with her nails, pounded at him with her fists, before grabbing the protruding piece of plastic and ramming it deeper into his skull. Incoherent curses gurgled in her throat, mingling with crazed screams. He had to die; he had to _die!_

Before the piece of pink plastic could go deep enough to kill him, however, Eamonn struck out at her, sending her to the floor. Snarling, he lurched toward her, reaching for her throat. Grasping it, he squeezed, shoving the mortal woman down onto the carpet, slamming her head against the floor as he throttled her. He could feel the fragile windpipe beginning to give slightly under the pressure of his grip. Good. He'd kill the little bitch. He'd had his fun, made Silverlance suffer. Now he'd kill her and—

Something massive slammed into Eamonn, sending him tumbling to the floor. Dylan coughed and choked, gasping for breath, as Nuada tried to get to his feet after tackling his foe. Amber blood was sheeting down his back and his entire body shuddered with the agony of his reopened wounds and the Tears boiling in his veins. He managed to get to his feet, only to fall to his knees again, and Eamonn lunged for him.

He was brought up short by Dylan, who'd found the torn fragments of yet another nightgown. She brought it, twisted into a rope, down to wrap around Eamonn's throat. She put all of her weight behind it, hauling on the makeshift garrote while Eamonn gurgled and choked. He clawed at the nightgown-rope. Dylan gritted her teeth, biting down on her bottom lip until she tasted blood. She wouldn't let go; she _wouldn't_. She'd _kill_ him. _She would kill him!_

Then Nuada was there, his long-ago discarded knife retrieved and in his hand, and he drove the silver blade into Eamonn's chest and belly over and over again. Hot silver blood spurted from the wounds, splashing Nuada's hands, his arms, his face and torso. Eamonn choked on a scream as Nuada effectively gutted him with the twin-knife and Dylan strangled him with the silky nightgown.

The prince and the mortal only eased up when Eamonn had finally ceased to stop twitching for nearly fifteen minutes. Dylan's hands practically creaked as she pried her fingers from the satin-like rope. Nuada hunched on his hands and knees over the corpse, panting for breath, covered in silver, gold, and a bit of scarlet blood. Dylan tried to crawl away from the corpse, but she found herself scuttling toward the Elven warrior who'd helped slay her nightmarish tormentor. She cuddled against Nuada, shaking violently in reaction to the killing, and Nuada wrapped his arms around her, hissing at the pain in his back and the ache in his arms and shoulders.

"It's all right," he wheezed, rocking her back and forth. "It's over. It's all right now, little one, shhh." He shushed her gently even though she made no sound, only trembled. "He's dead. It's all right. Shhh…he's dead, Dylan, he's dead. It's over now. Shhh…" Then Nuada gasped as the ebbing adrenaline and battle-fire made way for the scalding lust. He tried to shove it down, shove it away, but it dug its talons into him, deep enough to draw intangible blood, and would not let him go.

He looked down at Dylan; saw that she felt it as well. Nuada shoved her away and lurched to his feet. Stumbled. No. No! He wouldn't take her again, he _wouldn't_. He would die first before succumbing, before raping her again. Eamonn was dead; the nightmare was _over_, dammit!

Somehow he staggered out into the corridor, but the world was swimming, tilting and whirling, he couldn't remember how to get to the front door. What little sanity he had left mocked him for thinking he could survive walking out naked into a New York night in November, with snow freezing the ground and falling thickly outside. Nuada had no mind for such details.

He tripped and half-fell into a little room he'd never been in before, a den of some sort. Vainly he struggled to navigate around chairs and a sofa while the world twisted and spun around him, but he stumbled over a little stool and landed on the plush woven rug in front of the fireplace, gasping for air. He ground his teeth as every muscle in his body tightened until he thought he'd scream with the pain of it. The touch of the rug was agony against his over-sensitized skin. The heat of the fire in the den hearth threatened to burn him alive.

"Nuada!" Dylan cried from behind him. He jerked around, causing a wave of white-hot shards to scrape over his back, and saw her try to come toward him, only to falter and sink to the ground. She was too weak from the attack on Eamonn—on top of more than a week in captivity—to come to him on her own two feet after rushing after him. But she managed to crawl toward him, mumbling, "You're hurt. You can't go, you're hurt, you…"

"Stay away," he gasped out, even as he reached for her. He couldn't think, couldn't breathe past the lust rising in him. The haze was descending, blocking everything out. Mingling with the lust and the poison was the instinct of life over death; they had nearly been killed, but despite their enemy they had survived. His body wanted hers, wanted to claim her as its rightful spoils for winning the battle and destroying the enemy; her body wanted to be claimed by him…even though he knew she would despise him when the poison wore off. "No…no, Dylan…don't…"

Then her fingers touched his, tangled with his, and apocalyptic fire crashed down on them both. Nuada yanked her toward him, twisted to get her beneath him. She was still naked, still wet from the shower. Wet, warm, so soft, Hell's teeth, he couldn't help himself, couldn't think. His mouth came down on hers, needing, devouring. Her lips were so _soft_. Tongues tangled, breath mingled. Slender fingers tunneled into Nuada's hair. Dylan's frantic heartbeat pounded against his chest through their slick skin. His hand slid greedily up her lean thigh. Her hands roamed over his body, uncaring of the blood. And oh, gods, he could smell her, her hair and her skin, clean water and desire and…

Nuada pulled that long lean leg over his hip, nudged her other leg aside to leave her open to him, and with his mouth hot and hungry on hers to swallow her cries of pleasure, he took her over and over, drowning them both in the ecstasy of their joining once more, as he'd sworn he would never do again.

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_**Author's Note:**__ this ending was why I decided to post the next chapter, which has a lot less violence and no sex (though still some angst, obviously). We're getting to one of my favorite parts in the story, though. I promise. So I hope you guys liked this chapter and please let me know what you think! =D Reviews are love!_

_And the chapter title actually comes from a song in_ Legally Blonde: The Musical. _Little fun fact. It's actually about being a lawyer, but I thought it fit this chapter._


	8. Ariadne

_**Author's Note:**__ so now that Eamonn's dead, we can move on to other things. Who's excited? I'm excited. So here we go! And the title of this chapter refers to the song "Ariadne" by the Cruxshadows, which is about Theseus and Ariadne. The line that really struck me as relevant to the song was, "He used your love, he used your body, and then discarded everything…" I dunno, I like it. So here we go! Read and review, please!_

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**Chapter Eight**

**Ariadne**

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Dylan's eyes snapped open several hours later. She bolted upright, clutching at herself because she remembered falling asleep—falling unconscious—naked…but she wasn't naked. And she wasn't wearing any of the silky nightwear Francesca had bought her to encourage her "sexuality" and that Eamonn had liked so much (and that she was going to cut up and burn at the nearest opportunity). Instead, she wore a long, crimson—tunic? Shirt?—of what felt like silk. The sleeves fell past her fingertips, the hem past her knees. The collar was embroidered with fine golden thread in a design of vines and leaves. When Dylan turned her head, she smelled pine, summer woods, the spice of evergreen. Her eyes widened as she recalled where she'd caught this scent before.

The shirt was Nuada's. Had he dressed her? She felt clean, without the sticky residue of the past…how many days had Eamonn had them both? Why didn't she feel dirty? Had she showered…? Yes, she remembered suddenly. In the guest bathroom. She'd huddled on the shower floor, doused herself with almost an entire bottle of soap worked into her skin and hair, scrubbed herself raw, and then just let the water pound down on her, washing everything away. She'd fallen asleep in the shower, woken up when the water turned icy.

How had she gotten up, though? Her bad knee should've kept her on the floor unless…had Nuada helped her? She didn't remember. The gancanaugh poison made everything hazy. All she knew for certain was that she'd fallen asleep on the rug in front of the fireplace, woken up, showered, fallen asleep again, woken up, and…and what?

She covered her throat with one shaking hand, a purely instinctual defensive gesture. Her fingertips brushed against a linen bandage covering the bony protrusion of the end of her clavicle. Swallowing, Dylan started to give herself a thorough once-over. Bandages wrapped her wrists, protecting the deep lacerations she'd gotten from the ropes. Suddenly, inanely, she remembered what Eamonn had said about Nuada being unable to heal with magic.

Eamonn. _Eamonn_. Blood…pain…screaming…pleasure…terror. Her stomach rolled, and Dylan covered her mouth with both hands. A fine tremor began to shiver through her body and suddenly she was sobbing, gasping, choking on the screams trying to pour out of her mouth. Her heart rammed against her ribs. Her stomach twisted into vicious knots. Clutching at her hair, sliding her hands over her face, Dylan gasped for breath through the tears. Hysteria was rising like an icy tide. Eamonn…what he'd done…his hands on her, his mouth, his body over hers…

From far off Dylan heard screaming. It rose in a high-pitched wail, piercing her ears. She thought her skull might fragment under the heavy weight of it. Something was clogging her throat. She tasted salt, blood. Realized that _she_ was the one screaming. The screams tore from her chest, ripping at her throat. Pressing her hands so tight to her face that she could feel the bones under her skin, she fought to get control.

"Shut up!" Dylan shrieked through the hysterical sobbing. "Stop it! Stop it, stop it, stop it! _Stop it!_ _**Stop!**_ Shut up, shut up, _shut up_. No. _No!_ I won't do this! _Stop it!_" Channeling the dark emotion churning in the pit of her stomach into screaming, demanding she get a grip, somehow Dylan managed to calm herself until she was only crying. Every sob caught in her throat, and she couldn't get enough air, but she'd managed to stop shrieking like a banshee. That was something…wasn't it?

Still crying, the tears scalding her cheeks, she struggled to the guest bathroom to splash icy water on her face. It seemed to work after a few moments; she finally just stood in front of the mirror, clutching the edges of the counter until they cut into her hands, shaking and panting for breath. With bleary eyes she got a good look at herself.

The three bites on and near her neck—and the vicious one Eamonn had delivered to her thigh at some point—were bandaged, as well. She touched her fingertips to her lips and found the cuts there had been dabbed with some kind of salve. Touched her cheeks, where Eamonn had sliced into the already-scarred flesh; someone had cleaned the dried blood from the slashes, and maybe put some salve on them earlier, because they were further along toward healing than she would've expected. They hadn't been deep, suture-worthy cuts, but they'd still been bloody and painful. Blue and purple bruises mottled her skin.

And for once, nothing hurt.

With shaking legs she went back to the den. Shivered as the door swung shut behind her. The cottage felt massive, cold, and alien to her. She knew, with a distant sort of pain that would grow the longer she thought about it, that she could never live in this cottage again. She'd been tortured, starved, beaten, and raped in her own house, in her own bedroom. Dylan couldn't feel safe there ever again.

But where was she supposed to live? She couldn't think about it now. She couldn't think about any of it now. When hysteria began to rise in her chest again, Dylan bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood, dug her nails into her palms, and forced it down until she could think straight. Then she took a quick look around. Where was Nuada? He hadn't come to the sound of her screaming, so…

A piece of paper on the mantel caught her eye. Her fingers shook as she reached out and plucked it from beneath the silver-bladed dirk Nuada had set on top of it to keep it from flying away in any errant breezes. Dylan swallowed as she read his note.

_I have taken your brownie to a healer. He will live. I have__  
__also disposed of Eamonn's carcass and had another brownie__  
__of my acquaintance clean up the mess left behind. I've gone__  
__to tell my vassal what has happened. Keep the dirk with you__  
__and do not leave the cottage. When I return, we shall settle__  
__the debt between us._

—_N_

_Settle the debt between us…_He meant to kill her, then. To execute her for luring him into this trap, allowing him to be tortured and nearly killed by Eamonn. But then why take care of her? Why put her to bed in the den on the sofa, wearing what had to be _his_ shirt? What was going on in Nuada's head? Perhaps he wanted her to be comfortable, to feel okay…the way prisoners on Death Row received a last meal and such. Would he kill her quickly, or make her suffer? How much pain did she owe him for what Eamonn had done to him?

Did it matter? Did she even care what happened to her now? As long as Nuada was safe—and now he was—she didn't care anymore. She was just…tired. So tired. Nothing mattered except…

_I'm so sorry, Nuada,_ she thought, sinking back onto the sofa. _I'm sorry, I'm so sorry_…She drew her knees up to her chest, feeling a dull ache in her bad knee and a rawness between her legs that would be long in healing. Except it wouldn't heal, she reminded herself. She would be dead before she'd have a chance to heal. Why was she so calm about that?

Because she wanted to die. She'd clawed her way out of a nightmare that had lasted eleven years, sworn it would never happen again, then been set upon by wolves. The only reason she'd had the strength to go on living was because of Nuada. Her prince. He didn't know it, but he'd given her the strength to put that attack behind her. Yet now…now she'd been plunged back into the nightmare, dragging her prince with her. Her safe place, her cottage, had been plundered. Her body had been violated and she…she had…she'd _enjoyed_ it. Most of the time, anyway. That was because of the Tears, but…but still. Eamonn had succeeded where the Blackwood brothers had failed. The Elf of Zwezda had made her a whore.

Not only that, but she'd hurt her prince. The man who'd risked his life to save hers twice now. Eamonn had—there was no other word for it—raped Nuada, and used Dylan to do it.

Fresh tears stung her eyes, mortal tears with their salt and bitterness. They filled her eyes but didn't spill over; she wouldn't let them. If she started to cry again, really cry, she wouldn't be able to stop this time. But there went one tear dropping down her cheek, and another. A third. Praying Nuada would come back soon, to put an end to this guilt and self-loathing and fear, Dylan closed her eyes, leaned back, and let the tears fall silently down her cheeks, refusing to make a sound…

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Which was how Nuada found her ten minutes later. He stepped into the den and saw her, bruised and weeping silently, looking like a child in his too-large shirt. It had been one of the hardest things he'd ever done—helping Dylan to and from the shower like a child, tending to her injuries as best he could with what supplies she possessed in her cupboards, then dressing the exhausted and broken mortal in one of the long Elven shirts she'd taken from his sanctuary all those months ago. The prince had thought that the scents from the sanctuary, still miraculously saturating the cloth, would make Dylan feel safe—but it had all been so very difficult, because he'd ached for her all the while. Only exhaustion and the agony from his back had kept him from ravishing her again in the shower, on the little sofa, before the den fireplace once more. His body had attempted to rouse for her, but too long with not enough food, water, and sleep had at last taken its toll.

Now he watched her sob so hard he thought she might become ill with it, though she didn't make a sound. He wanted to go to her, to comfort her—_he_ had caused this grief; honor demanded he offer her succor—but he dared not. After what he'd done to her, his presence would frighten her. No, he had no right to touch her. He had no right to ask anything of her or offer anything to her. The Elven warrior could only kneel before her and accept the price of her vengeance…no matter how high. If she demanded his blood, well enough. If she demanded his life…he would bare his throat to her and bid her strike true. It was what honor required, after all.

"Dylan," he murmured from the doorway. Her eyes snapped open and her head jerked up, the shorn locks of her hair falling in dark, unruly waves around her face. Tears streamed down those pale, bruised cheeks. Nuada came into the room. Her flinch when he stepped toward her was like a slap. He cleared his throat. "You…you needn't be afraid."

She said nothing. Only sniffled and swiped at her cheek with the heel of her palm. Her slender knees peeked out from beneath the hem of his shirt; the abrasion-burns still marred her skin. A memory hit him then, of Dylan on her hands and knees before him, his own hands sliding along the scarred but still exquisitely soft flesh of her back before grasping her slender hips, holding her still for his invasion as he'd taken her like a rabid animal.

Nuada swallowed the faintest stirring of lust and shoved the revolting wisp of memory away. "I…I won't hurt you, Dylan," he tried to reassure her, taking another step.

She merely watched him with those big, blue eyes, so reproachful with their tears. He wanted to despise the mortal for looking at him like that, as if he were a monster, but how could he? How could he hate her after what he'd done to her? He _was_ a monster; he'd stolen what was left of her innocence and used her for his own pleasures, never thinking of _her_. How could he feel anything but pity, and regret, and admiration for her bravery and endurance of what both he and Eamonn had put her through? Bravery, where none should've been…and she'd tried to warn him away, knowing Eamonn would brutalize her, kill her for it. Such courage she'd shown. How could Nuada hate her?

"I swear, I…it is only that I've come to see justice done," the prince added. Her bottom lip quivered. How dare he think to offer her justice? Well enough could he understand her hurt, her grief, her outrage at his audacity. Nothing he could ever do or offer would make right the wrongs he'd done her. Still, he had to make the attempt. "I know you have seen much violence these last days. I do not seek to add to your burden but I thought…I thought you would prefer it this way. And you know how it is to be done, so it will be quick. You needn't fear…" He trailed off as the tears came again, spilling like liquid diamond from her eyes. "Dylan…please…"

"You don't need to explain," she managed to whisper. "I understand. I get it. You can't forgive me…it's my fault…I should've tried to tell you or get help or…or tried to do _something_. I know you have to kill me now. I understand. Just do it, please. And don't let it hurt. I don't want to hurt anymore."

Nuada took a single staggering step forward. "Kill you?" Her last words echoed in his skull, slicing him to the quick. _I don't want to hurt anymore…_

A forlorn nod as she continued to sniffle and weep. "I should've protected you, I should've made it clear Eamonn was here so you would go, but I was too sick and scared. I just couldn't get the words out. I'm sorry, Nuada, I'm so sorry, please forgive me."

He _did_ go to her then, kneeling before her. Before this past fortnight—a _fortnight_, for the gods' pity, fourteen days he'd used her like some sort of whore-doll, forcing her to accommodate his poisonous lust—he'd have laughed at the thought of kneeling before a human…but not now, and not before her. There was no shame in kneeling before his accidental victim to offer his blood.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, he murmured, voice thick with emotion, "Forgive you? No. No, my lady. It is _I_ who should be begging _you_ for forgiveness, little though I deserve it." He found he had to clear his throat again before he could continue. "Dylan…you know I abhor rape. The very thought of it sickens me. After seeing my mother murdered…no woman deserves such a fate. And I not only failed to protect you from my enemies, but _participated_ in your ravishment. I took my pleasure in you, hurting you, forcing you to submit to…No, forgiveness is not mine to give; it is only mine to beg of you."

"But you didn't want to do it; it wasn't your fault. And you said…" She swiped at her cheeks, hugged herself. "You said you were coming back to settle our debt."

"_My_ debt to _you_, Dylan," Nuada said. "You owe me nothing. I owe you everything for what I have done to you. Will you forgive me, or is my blood required to erase that debt? If it is, I spill it gladly for my ally…for one who was once my friend, before I trespassed against her."

Lips trembling, she whispered, "I'm still your friend, and I don't want your blood. You didn't do anything wrong." She slipped from the sofa to sit beside him on the floor. Her head fell on his shoulder, her arms twined around him, and she clung to him as if he were her only safe port in a raging storm. Nuada tensed, then slowly relaxed. Before their captivity, she never would've dreamed of doing this, nor would he have ever dreamed of allowing it, but now…now they both needed comfort. "You didn't do anything," Dylan murmured tearfully. "You're a victim, too. He…he raped both of us. You didn't do anything. You didn't do anything."

Somehow his hand found its way to her cropped hair, and he smoothed it back from her tear-stained face, a soothing gesture he'd often employed with his sister and with—his stomach attempted to roil at the thought—past lovers. Dylan shivered and took a shuddering breath. Nuada laid his cheek against the silk of her hair, surprised to find it comforted him to hold her near.

But then, of course it did. They had come through this horror together. Something more than friendship existed between them now. Now they shared the bond of enduring and escaping Hell itself, relying only on each other to do so. He'd never thought he could hold a human in such a high regard, but Nuada knew now that he and Dylan would forever be connected by the events of the past two weeks.

"Nuada," Dylan ventured into the silence a little while later. "Why don't you hate me?"

He frowned. "Hate you?" Amber eyes dropped to her face, earnest and pale. "Dylan…why should I hate you? You tried to protect me, even at the cost of your own life. Not once, not twice, but many times you have done this—the night we met, and in the tunnels, and…and this time. Do you think me a fool? I know what Eamonn would've done to you if I'd left as you tried to force me to do. Yet you strove to keep me safe despite the danger, the surety of death. How can I do aught but accept such loyalty and love, and return it?" A low, incredulous laugh wormed its way out of him. "I never thought I would say such to a human."

Dylan offered him a wan smile that quickly slipped away like a ghost. She reached up to brush some of the ragged hair from her face, and a small, distressed sound escaped her. Nuada glanced at her sharply.

"What is it?"

"N-nothing," she mumbled.

Brushing the tangles of hair from her eyes, he said, "Tell me."

"You'll…you'll g-get mad," she whispered in the voice of a frightened child. He swallowed bile and wondered at the way his eyes suddenly burned, as if stung by the wind. "It's stupid. You'll be m-m-mad," Dylan whispered tremulously.

Striving for gentility, he murmured, "No, I won't. Tell me—what is it?"

"It's just…just…my hair." She clutched at a fistful of the cropped curls, let them go in despair. "I spent y-years trying to g-grow it out that f-far. So it would l-look like my mother's. And he c-cut it all off and now it's ugly and," she was crying again now, hiccupping sobs that would've terrified a lesser man, "and I'm, I'm ugly and you g-got hurt and it was m-my f-f-fault and I have to m-move out of my h-house now and I d-don't know what I'll d-d-do and I'm a wh-whore and—"

Rage shot through Nuada in three quick, black, icy pulses. He turned abruptly and grabbed Dylan's frail shoulders, momentarily forgetting the bruises hidden by the red silk shirt. She yelped and froze, her breath coming in rapid shallow gasps like a frightened rabbit. Furious, Nuada shook her hard, once, very quickly.

"That is _not_ true. You are _not_ a whore. He raped you, stars curse it! You didn't ask for this!"

"Yes I d-did!" She choked out, crumpling. "I was b-begging, he made m-me—I couldn't h-help it, everything was just—I mean—I c-c-couldn't think, but I had to, I _had_ to, it h-hurt so m-much and it wouldn't st-stop, and you were s-so—you were—it f-felt like I was, was _drowning_ and h-he made me a whore—"

The rest of her words were brought to a sharp halt when Nuada yanked her against him, arms tight around her, hardly knowing what he was doing. She sobbed into his shirt, clutching at his sleeves, shaking violently. Only once in his life had he dealt with this sort of grief—with Nuala, in the aftermath of their mother's brutal murder—and he did now what he had done then: he rocked Dylan like a child, petting her hair, his chin resting atop her head as she cried. He murmured continuously, using similar words to the ones he'd used with his sister.

"No, darling. No. That isn't true. None of that is true. It wasn't your fault, little one. No, darling, don't cry. Shhh. Do not cry. It is all right now, little one. Don't cry. It is all right."

Nuada knew it wasn't. He knew it would be a long time before Dylan felt that anything was all right again. Just as he, Nuada, would be a long time before feeling things were all right—or at least that they'd returned to normal. The sick sense of violation, the ugly feeling of shame and degradation that seemed to seep from his very pores, wouldn't fade anytime soon. Eamonn had _used_ him, stripped him of his will and used him as a tool in his attempt to destroy Dylan—and Nuada himself.

Perhaps Dylan was right. Perhaps Nuada was just as much a victim as she was. Perhaps the dark Elf had succeeded in raping them both, until they felt they would never be clean again. And if Eamonn _had_ raped him, _physically_, in truth…thank the gods, he hurt enough everywhere that he had no proof of it, nor did he remember it.

Sometime later, Dylan whispered tremulously into his shirt, "Are you going to leave again? Like before?"

He couldn't. How could he? She was in no condition to be left alone. Instinct warned him that leaving her to her own devices again could prove fatal to her. What if she attempted to harm herself? Hysteria seethed just beneath the surface of Dylan's psyche like a poisonous miasma. And if…if there were…_consequences_ of the fortnight they'd spent under Eamonn's power…what would he do then?

"No," he murmured, giving none of his thoughts away. "No, I'll not leave you again. Not for awhile, at any rate." He couldn't stay with her forever, unless…unless…honor would demand that he make reparations of Eamonn had managed to…

Dylan sniffed quietly. "You won't d-disappear again?"

Nuada shook his head. "No, little one. I shan't vanish on you again." When he was certain her tears had dried up for the time being, he gently leaned her back and skimmed his hand over her hair. "If you truly dislike your hair, I can fix it. Shall I?"

It stunned him no little bit when her timid, childlike nod broke his heart.

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_**Author's Note:**__ so a warning of this fic - Dylan and Nuada are a LOT more unstable in this variation than in the other variation or in the original timeline. Which will give me interesting things to explore. However, there will be no more rape/sexual torture in this fic. There may be threats of it, but no actual occurrences. I've exhausted that well of torment. So hope you guys enjoyed the chap! Tell me what you think will happen next?_


	9. Days in Purgatory

_**Author's Note:**__ and I'm back with chapter nine. Gartabro, this chapter is dedicated to you! Why? Because you ask the best questions in your reviews, lol. Keep it up. I was glad to hear from you. Anyway guys, hope you enjoy this chapter. Is enjoy the right word? I dunno. Hope this chapter fulfills your dark needs. Whatever. You know what I mean. And I'll see you guys at the end._

_Hugs, LA_

_PS - Some poetic license here. The words "Áthair" and "Máthair" mean "Father" and "Mother" in Gaelic. However, "Áta" and "Máta" are not words typically found in Gaelic. I figured that, just like "mommy" and "daddy" emerged as baby-talk from "Mom" and "Dad," those two words might emerge as the diminutive forms of the actual words. So "Áta" and "Máta" are like…sort of like "Papa" or "Mama." According to LA, anyway._

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**Chapter Nine**

**Days in Purgatory**

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Nuala huddled on her bed, shaking in the aftermath of this newest nightmare. Everything was hazy, distant, clouded with crimson rage and black hatred so intense it made the princess's stomach roll. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Her heart hammered against her breastbone so hard her chest ached. The lamps and hearth fire burned bright in a futile attempt to chase away the shadows. Clutching the green velvet blankets so hard her slim hands ached, the Elven woman dropped her head down to her updrawn knees and trembled.

"Daughter?"

Her head snapped up when her father called gently to her from the doorway of her bedchamber.

Seeing Balor's tender concern brought a freshet of tears. The old king hastened to the bed and sat down beside his daughter, taking her into his arms. Draping his arm of silver-and-wood about her shoulders, Balor stroked a careful hand over the smooth, ivory silk of Nuala's hair.

"_Áthair_," she whispered, burying her face against his shoulder. "_Áthair_…_**Áta**_…"

"There now, _a stóirín_—it is all right now," Balor murmured, still petting her hair. "All is well now. You needn't be afraid. You're safe, Nuala." When her tears had abated somewhat, he asked, "What happened, my daughter? Your message said there was news about…" The king trailed off, unable to bring himself to say the name of his disgraced heir.

Nuala nodded miserably. "I think he may be hurt in some way," she said. She couldn't be sure, but the king knew that. Their strange connection was weakened by distance, for one thing, but also the healing spells Balor had instructed the healers to put on his daughter during Nuada's flogging were still in effect, because Nuada was still suffering from the iron-inflicted wounds, and Nuala needed to be protected as well as she might be from the mystical link between the royal twins. A veritable cocoon of healing spells still curled and twined around the princess, muffling her connection to her brother.

But her entire body ached, despite the spells. Nuada had to have suffered some great injury to penetrate both distance and magic. She'd been afraid for his life, especially after the pain had suddenly just vanished. Only the seething mass of bitter, half-mad hatred festering in the back of Nuala's mind told Nuala that Nuada was still alive. And it was that emotion—that insanity—that had been giving her nightmares for the last three weeks.

"Will he live?" Balor asked tonelessly. "Are you in danger from…whatever has happened?"

She nodded again. "He will live, I think. And I'm in no danger. But I fear…I fear that Nuada has…has done something terrible."

Balor's eyes widened and his entire body stiffened. The last time he had seen his son, it had been at his trial and flogging for the crimes of stone-cold murder and rape. What could be more terrible than that? Nuada had been in terrible shape after Eamonn had delivered the final lash. What could the prince possibly have done?

Keeping his voice gentle, he asked his daughter, "What do you sense?"

"Rage. Such—_terrible_—rage. I don't know how he keeps from going mad with it. Hatred as I've never felt in him. Vicious, cold as ice, black as a starless night. And…" She shuddered. "And lust. Poisonous. All-consuming. I think…" She swallowed hard. "I think he's gone back to the human woman."

"_What?_"

"I think he may be hurting her. I think he might be…_using_ her." It was the only explanation she could think of, to explain the toxic miasma of fury, loathing, and desire. Nuala pressed trembling fingers hard against her lips. "My brother is…my brother is…" She squeezed her eyes shut. "_Áta_…I heard things in my dreams_…__saw_ things…"

Sick in his soul, Balor whispered, "What things?"

"A woman screaming in pain. Sounds of…pleasure. And Nuada…I saw Nuada above a woman, taking her…mindlessly. Brutally. Mortal blood…by the Fates, the stench of blood and Branwen's Tears and pain…" She turned stricken eyes to her father. "What's happened to him?"

Pulling his daughter hard against him, holding her as she began to sob, Balor could only whisper, "I don't know. I…I don't know."

But what the king did know was that his only son and heir was out of chances. There could be no more mercy. Not after the flogging, not after disobeying his sovereign lord and returning to torment that mortal woman once more, against the king's express command. No…there was no choice now.

Balor would summon his son before him, and when Nuada arrived, he would be arrested…and executed.

**.**

It took the Elf prince some time to locate a decent pair of non-medical scissors that weren't in Dylan's bedroom (apparently she kept her sewing kit in her bedroom closet, but neither of them intended to go in there again if they could help it). Nuada had Dylan wet her hair beneath the faucet in the guest bathtub—the kitchen and the master bathroom were enemy territory now. When Dylan's curls were thoroughly soaked, he draped a towel over her shoulders, bade her sit inside the guest bathtub perched on the edge, and he carefully finger-combed and trimmed the ragged ends of her hair to even them out.

He'd been forced to learn to cut his own hair in the army, during a stint when one of his two valets had been killed in battle; Wink was no good at Elven grooming. Of course the prince couldn't make up Dylan's curls in an elegant lady's style, as his sister often preferred, but Dylan didn't want that. She just wanted it to be long again.

Well, he could do that for her. It was a simple enough bit of magic. Taxing, but worth it. It wasn't as if he had anywhere he needed to be or anything he needed to do anytime soon. Wink was watching the cottage now. If any of Nuada's other enemies decided they wanted to try for him or Dylan, they would have an eight-foot-tall, heavily muscled, and very angry silver cave troll to contend with.

Wink had had quite a bit to say about what had happened during the fortnight Nuada had been in Dylan's cottage, but to the prince's surprise, most of it hadn't been words of castigation and blame on the prince. The troll _had_ blamed himself for not going after his liege when Nuada had failed to return after a couple days, but Nuada had told him he would be staying at Dylan's for some time; it wasn't Wink's fault by any stretch. Wink's words reverberated through Nuada's head as he worked on the mortal's hair.

_"I knew I should have gone with you…it was foolish to throw down your weapons…damn your honor, Nuada, you were nearly killed! Only luck saved you…I don't know what I would have done if you'd been killed by that treacherous dog…"_

Yet even worse had been when Wink's fear-fueled ire had run out, and he'd turned to the prince he'd known since Nuada's childhood and gripped his shoulders very gently. The single amber-green eye had roved over the Elf's wan, haggard face for several moments in excruciating silence before Wink had made a low rumble of sadness.

_"It has taken its toll on you, these past weeks…haven't they?"_ Wink had asked. To his shock, Nuada had begun trembling, a minute tremor almost imperceptible to one who wasn't looking for it. But the troll had seen it. And for the first time in centuries—since Nuada had left youth behind and traded it for adulthood—Wink pulled his prince into a fatherly embrace. The Elven warrior had nearly lost his composure then, but centuries of self-control helped him to hold on…barely. And Wink had merely held him for a moment, murmuring, "_You are_ not _to blame. You are innocent of any wrong-doings here, my prince. The lassling will see that, too. You've done nothing wrong. Nothing."_

He hadn't known if Wink was right about Dylan—_would_ she believe him innocent of any crimes?—but as usual, the troll had seen the truth. Dylan didn't blame him…for anything. And that was a miracle Nuada would never have looked for. Grateful for small mercies, he went back to dealing with those ragged, unruly curls.

Once the ends of the thick chestnut tresses were even, Nuada found a better, fine-toothed comb in the medicine cabinet. Dylan said it was her brother's, and that combs couldn't normally get through her curls. The prince murmured the two necessary spells in the Old Tongue and began to pull the comb through Dylan's hair. Just like before, the teeth of the small metal comb seemed to part her curls easily, as easily as combing spidersilk. Dylan had been braced for pain, the usual snap and snarl of tangles being pulled through tight curls, but there wasn't anything like that. It was like Nuada was pulling the comb through water. And as he combed her hair, those luxurious tresses began to grow. By the time he'd finished, they fell in a gleaming cascade to her waist; a good five inches longer than her hair had been to begin with.

Nuada watched her step to the mirror, a cold fist clutching his chest when he saw how she kept her head down, her hair between herself and her reflection. It took her agonizing moments to lift her head enough to see her reflection in the mirror. One shaking hand reached up to touch the new slashes across her face, and she flinched…but then her fingers skated over the marks and up, to touch the thick, dark brown locks. Her bottom lip trembled. She closed her eyes, drew a deep breath. Then she turned to the prince and whispered, "Thank you."

"It was my privilege," he replied softly. Gods, he wished he could raise Eamonn from the grave, just so he could kill him over again for stripping Dylan of that fight, that spirit the prince admired so much in her. He remembered what she'd told him, of the eleven years of abuse in the insane asylum as a child. Had she been like this then? Merely a wisp of frightened shadow?

How had she made herself into a woman who could survive that attack by human wolves and still find the courage to deal with him in all his fury and pain? And what would it take to bring her back to that part of herself now? She'd forced herself to cope during those three months in the sanctuary because—much as Nuada detested this knowledge—he had needed her. In all likelihood, he would have died without her, and she had known it. What would it take for her to find such strength now?

But he didn't dwell on that. He merely asked gently, "Are you hungry? Tired?"

After a moment, she nodded. "I'm a bit tired." She tucked her hair behind her ears, sighed. "I…I don't know what I'm going to do about work. Eamonn…I know he set something up so no one would know I was missing, but I don't know…"

Wondering if he dared touch her so soon after the storm of weeping in the den, Nuada ventured to lightly brush her upper arm with just the tips of his fingers. Dylan hadn't been expecting it. She jumped and jerked back, her back colliding with the wall, chest heaving as her breathing kicked up. The Elf held up both hands, palms out, in the universal gesture of no-harm, and took a step back. After a moment Dylan's breathing returned mostly to normal.

"Forgive me," the prince murmured, keeping his hands out and open. Remorse and self-loathing twisted icily in his guts. "I did not mean to frighten you."

She shook her head. "It's not your fault. I…when I was younger, I…I…" Dylan scrubbed her mouth with the back of a fist, wincing when the two splits in her bottom lip oozed a few drops of blood. "When my parents put me in the institution, I got into this mindset…I was afraid to be touched. By anyone, actually, except John, my twin brother, but he wasn't…he wasn't around. When things happen that, um…that remind me of being there, I fall back into that mindset a little bit. A lot a bit, actually.

"It's not you." She suddenly fixed wide eyes on him. "Don't think it's you. It's not. You're being so kind, so gentle. Just like before. I don't know what I'd do without…without you here. I don't what I'd do."

Leaning back against the bathroom wall, he casually folded his arms across his chest, even though he felt anything but casual at the moment. Focusing on making amends, on attempting to repair the damage he'd done to her, had helped him not to examine his own state of mind too closely. But Nuada knew himself too close to the edge when, once his distracted mind had processed what Dylan had said, he'd had to swallow the urge to find a blade and hunt down whoever had made her fear being touched. Hunt them down, and cut them into bloody pieces. Because he could only think of one reason why such a fear would have come to her…

"You're tired," he reminded her gently. That wasn't what he wanted to say. He wanted to ask why she'd feared to be touched, even by friends and loved ones. Wanted to demand the names of whoever had hurt her back then, so that he could track them down and gut them like the filth they were. He wanted an outlet for the black, burning rage that seethed inside him, that had grown hotter and darker ever since that first moment when he'd seen Eamonn with his knife at Dylan's throat.

Instead Nuada leashed his rage and gestured to the door. "To the den, then?"

Dylan nodded and shuffled out of the room, head down. Nuada followed after, feeling sick in his heart, and wondering if the woman Dylan had been was lost forever.

**.**

The next morning, Nuada found Dylan curled up on the sofa where he'd left her. He had fallen asleep on the floor in the doorway, with his back against the side of the doorframe, his legs stretched out across the threshold of the den, his arms clenched tightly across his chest. The hard, unyielding rowan wood of the doorframe had been a very uncomfortable pillow, but it had been worth it, knowing Dylan was as safe as he could make her.

He rose stiffly to his feet and moved into the den. The smoldering rage, the dark hate, and something too primal and vicious to be fear was still knotting and coiling within him; it was the only reason he could think of to account for the fact that he started a little in shock when he saw that the mortal woman's eyes were open. The once-bright blue gaze was now dull, vacant. Lifeless. She was far too still…

Something icy clutched at his heart. Somehow he managed to bite out from between clenched teeth, "Dylan." When she didn't move, didn't so much as blink, he snapped, "Dylan." She still didn't react. That dark ice dug wintry talons into Nuada's heart. His voice trembled when he murmured, "Dylan?"

One hand reached out to touch her shoulder. The silk tunic was cool under his fingertips. Was she even breathing? He saw no movement from her, no rise and fall of her chest. Nuada sucked in a sharp breath.

_No_, he thought suddenly, heart tripping in his chest. _No…no, she can't…can't…no!_

"_Dylan!_"

She jumped, startled. Her chest gave one sharp heave before settling into a steady, more natural rhythm. A touch of color—barely there, but enough to push back some of the waxy paleness in her cheeks—flushed through her skin. Her hands began to shake. Dylan blinked dazedly up at him—the first time she'd blinked since he'd walked into the room. "Y-Y-Your Highness?"

"Did…" It took the Elven warrior a moment to regain a sharp grip on his control. For just a terrifying split-second, he'd thought that she…that somehow Dylan had…He pushed the thought away. This was pathetic, feeling so shaky, so out of control. He shoved down on the roiling, surging mass of emotions constantly threatening to make him ill. Finally Nuada managed to ask, "Did you sleep…well enough?"

Dylan's eyes dropped to the floor. He watched as she clasped her hands to stop their trembling, saw as it failed. She hugged herself instead, her slender fingers pressing into her arms hard enough that he knew it would leave bruises.

"I didn't sleep. I…I couldn't."

Star-blond brows furrowed. "You need sleep." A handful of short, sharp shakes of her head had a slow trickle of fresh ice spilling down his backbone. Why wouldn't she sleep? And why wouldn't she look at him? "Dylan…perhaps I can make something to help you sleep—"

"No!" Her frantic gaze jumped to his face. "No, Nuada, please…please. Don't." To his horror—and his underlying shame—two tears spilled from those shadowed eyes. "Nuada, _please._"

"Dylan—"

_"Please!"_ He watched her fight for composer. Watched as she scrubbed her face with shaking hands. It took everything he had not to caution her about the new lacerations on her face. A few tiny smears of blood stained her cheeks with morbid color. She drew a breath that was almost a whimper, a sound that hit him low in the belly. "I can't…I can't take anything. I can't take medicine or potions or…I can't. Please don't make me."

Her hands didn't stop trembling until he clasped them tightly in his own, squeezing them to halt the shakes. It was so strange, because the thought of being touched by anyone else made his stomach roll, but her timid, frightened touch didn't repulse him at all. It dragged out every feral, protective instinct within him. She was so broken…shades of Annwn…Dylan's breathing was too sharp, too rapid. Shallow enough that she'd faint if she didn't slow down and breathe properly.

"All right," Nuada said gently. "All right. No medicines. No potions. All right. Breathe, _mo bheag amháin_—my little one." The breath was whistling sharply between her clenched teeth. "You must breathe. It's all right, Dylan. Be calm. I'll not force you to do anything, I promise you. It's all right, little one."

"I'm sorry," she gasped. "I'm sorry, I just…I can't do that. I can't…they forced me to…when I was a kid, they…I'm sorry, I _can't_."

He didn't know what possessed him, but he reached out and cupped her cheek. "All right." His thumb brushed her cheek, skirting around the cuts and skimming softly over the bruises. "It's all right. Look at me, Dylan. Look at me." When her terrified, hopeless eyes fixed on his, most of the tension eased from her body. "It will be all right, little one—one day. One day. I promise you. Do you believe me?"

Hesitation in every movement, every line of her body, eventually Dylan shook her head. "I…I don't know. I should know. This is what I do for people, I should know it'll be…that it'll be…but I…I just…don't…" She crumpled into soft, heartbroken sobs. "I just don't know. I don't know." She covered her face with her hands. "I'm, I'm s-s-so scared, Nuada. I'm so scared. I—d-d-don't—know—what—t-to—d-do."

Settling on the sofa, he carefully drew her against him so she could cry into his chest. He held her, rocking her as he'd done the night before, whispering to her all the while. "It's all right. I'm here now, darling. I'll help you. I'm here. It will be all right. Shhh. I'm here now. I'm here."

And he would help her, by the Fates. He _would_. He hadn't been able to help his mother, had been forced to watch as his mother was ripped apart by beasts in the guise of men. If he closed his eyes, Nuada could still hear her screams…just like Dylan's. Dylan's terrified, agonized screams still haunted him at night. The images of what Eamonn had done to her were seared into his brain, occupying the same hellish niche in his mind as the memories of Cethlenn's defilement and murder.

_And my, my, think of this—what will your_ father _say about what you've done? Especially after what happened to your poor mother?_ Eamonn's words, Eamonn's cruel taunt after those first hours of joining with Dylan. They'd shared her, the two of them, forcing her to…

_Forgive me, Máthair_, Nuada thought as disgust washed through him. _Forgive me, Áthair…if you can. Nuala…_

"I'm scared," Dylan whispered through her tears, dragging his thoughts back to her. "I can't, I just c-c-can't handle it, I'm just…it won't st-stop, it won't go away. It's like I'm f-falling down this black hole. I'm scared. Don't leave me. I'm so scared."

"I know," he whispered back, stroking her hair. He laid his chin atop her head; the silk-fine strands of her hair caught in the rough stubble of his emerging beard. "I know, sweetheart. I know, but it's all right now. I won't leave you. I will never leave you. I know you're frightened, but I'm here now, Dylan. I'm here. You needn't be afraid anymore. He's dead." By tacit agreement, they would never speak Eamonn's name if they could avoid it. Eventually the two of them would _have_ to speak his name—when the king discovered Eamonn was dead, there would be questions, likely an interrogation—but for now…no. "He's dead, little one. He will _never_ hurt you again. He's dead. And I swear to you, I will never let _anyone_ hurt you, _ever_ again. I swear it."

Once she'd cried herself out in his arms, he cradled her head against his shoulder. Her body was limp as a sleepy child's with exhaustion. Nuada gently stroked her hair, still murmuring to her. After a while, the prince noticed Dylan nodding off against his shoulder. Every time her head drooped, she jerked awake with a small gasp and a shiver.

"Dylan, you need to sleep. Your body needs rest."

She shook her head wearily. "I'll have nightmares. I always have nightmares."

He hesitated, then ventured, "Nightmares?" What sorts of nightmares plagued her? Nightmares of Eamonn, of the human wolves? Of whatever childhood trauma had made her fear being touched as a girl? Or perhaps…perhaps nightmares of Nuada, of what he'd done to her.

A small tremor went through the mortal. "Yeah. I…I have what's called 'atypical parasomnia.' I have flashbacks when I'm asleep. Usually I just wake up, but…but sometimes I wake up screaming. I don't want to…to upset you."

His voice emerged—taut with suppressed fury and a frigid dread that almost made him physically sick—from numb lips. "Flashbacks to what?"

Rainswept blue eyes flicked to Nuada's face. Whatever she saw in his expression made her turn pale and drop her gaze to her raw knees. Her fingers twisted in his black silk tunic. She tugged on the sleeve, as if silently asking him to come closer; so at odds with her carefully averted face. She answered his question quietly with, "If I fall asleep, maybe you'll find out."

**.**

Later in the day, Nuada came out of the kitchen with a plate of simple sandwiches and two apples. Dylan had eaten nothing all day. He'd left a glass of water on the small table beside the den sofa, and now several hours later, the volume had depreciated by perhaps an inch. As far as the prince could tell, Dylan hadn't moved since they'd held each other on the sofa and he'd comforted her again. She just lay on the loveseat, gazing unblinkingly into the fire, or lay with her eyes closed.

Now he came into the den and set the plate on one of the two empty chairs so he would have his hands free. Dylan lay curled up on the sofa, as he'd expected. It took a few moments for him to ascertain whether she was asleep or not. If she was sleeping, he didn't want to wake her…but she had this little habit—a twitch of the fingers and a quirk of the toes—that gave away when she was awake.

"Dylan," the Elf murmured. Her eyes flicked opened, took a long moment to focus. They slid to his face. Lingered like a caress of gossamer. She blinked tiredly. "I brought you something to eat, my lady."

Her frown was muzzy and confused. "You shouldn't do that. You're a prince."

"You are…unwell," Nuada said with excruciating gentleness. "It is my privilege. Come. You should eat." She shook her head. Concern whispered through him. "Dylan…come now. You must be hungry, surely."

"No," she whispered. "I'm not. I'm just…tired."

He surprised himself when he reached out and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. Something hot and golden pulsed through his chest when she didn't flinch, didn't recoil. She merely closed her eyes and sighed softly. Dylan didn't fear him. How had he managed to escape from Eamonn's vicious revenge with that fact still in evidence?

Crouching in front of the loveseat, Nuada offered a strained smile and coaxed, "Come now, little one. I made you some sandwiches and I brought you an apple. Won't you take some food?"

For some reason, her voice trembled when she asked, "Do I have to?"

Unease shivered through him. "What's wrong, Dylan? Why do you not wish to eat? Do you feel ill?" She shook her head, and some of the disquiet lessened. If it had been nausea that stayed her appetite…but it was too soon for that, surely? So then…"Is it merely that you're tired?"

She nodded.

"Sweetheart, you must eat something. I know you're tired, but you'll become ill if you don't keep up your strength." When Dylan looked as if she still might protest, he added softly, "Please. For me."

There must have been something in his expression that convinced her, because after another hesitation, she nodded wearily. He snagged the plate from the chair cushion and set it on the sofa beside her. Taking the apple he'd brought for himself, he indicated with a tilt of his chin for her to start eating. With yet another uncertain pause, she did so.

It was painful to watch. Every agonizingly slow bite of the simple cheese sandwich seemed as if she were being forced to eat poison. There was no expression on her face, only a distant blankness that chilled him. She chewed mechanically. Swallowed like she was swallowing sawdust. Irritation warred with concern for pride of place in his chest. The irritation melted away, however, when Dylan lifted her eyes from the half-eaten sandwich to his face and whispered, "It's good. Thank you."

"You're welcome." The words were like ashes in his mouth. He ate his own meal silently while she labored through hers. She managed to eat one of the two sandwiches, but when her eyes fell on the second sandwich and a look of utter hopelessness filled her gaze, Nuada knew he needed to give her a way out. "If you cannot finish, I would be happy to help."

A twitch at the corner of Dylan's scarred mouth; a cruelly aborted smile. "Even grown men eat like little boys sometimes." She offered him the plate, with her remaining sandwich and apple on it. The apple gleamed in the light, red as a pool of blood. Her hand trembled with weakness.

Nuada lifted one shoulder in a shrug even as he accepted the plate. "That we do, my lady."

When the meal was finished, Dylan took a sip of the tepid water in the glass beside the sofa, then laid down again. Nuada hesitated at the doorway, unsure if it was wise to leave her alone. Something about the way she simply lay there unnerved him.

"Dylan…" She didn't speak when he said her name. Only blinked slowly. "Dylan, are you…do you need anything else?"

"No."

A minute tremor began in Nuada's hands. There was something awful in her empty gaze, her toneless voice. Something that terrified him more than Eamonn's tortures ever had. "Are you certain? I can get you anything you wish. Is there anything you'd like me to fetch you?"

"No."

He closed his eyes. Drew a ragged breath. Something was wrong here. Something had shifted in the last few moments, and Nuada felt it, felt himself balancing on the edge of a precipice, waiting for the smallest thing to send him plunging into the abyss. The Elven warrior asked on instinct, "Will you be all right, little one?"

Several seconds of excruciating silence stretched on like eternity, then Dylan mumbled, "I'll be fine."

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_**Author's Note:**__ yeah, we all know that's not true. But that's just like our girl. And like most people with depression and similar energy-sucking mental illnesses._

_So we get to see how everyone involved is handling the situation—including Balor and Nuala, dun-dun-dun—and we'll see what happens with the next chapter. I'm posting both new chapters at once because a) I'm a review hog and b) because this chapter ends on a rather depressing note, I wanted to post a chap that ends on a…well, not a happy note. Erm…a less depressing note. I think you'll like what I have in store for the next chapter._

_But just curious—what do you guys think is going to happen next?_

_Anyway, love you guys and hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I look forward to hearing from you. Let me know what you guys think! Hugs!_


	10. Sweet Dream (Beautiful Nightmare)

_**Author's Note:**__ so I posted this chapter together with the last chapter because…well, originally because I thought it was less depressing, but I gave it a quick scan just now and now I'm not certain. Be sure to let me know in your reviews what you think. Anyway, but I hope you enjoy the plot twists in this chapter and I'll see you at the end. Huggles!_

_._

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**Chapter Ten**

**Sweet Dream (Or a Beautiful Nightmare)**

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Somehow Dylan managed to keep awake until around sunset. Nuada dropped into uncomfortable asleep in his customary position stretched across the den doorway, only to be jerked awake later that night by terrified screams. He scrambled to his feet in time to see Dylan, still sleeping on the sofa, flail at an invisible assailant. Her spine bowed off the cushions with the force and volume of her next scream.

"Mommy," she shrieked in the voice of a petrified child, "_Mommy!_" Each word was ragged with tears and terror. "Please, Mommy...let me out! It's dark, it's dark, I'm scared! I'm scared! I'm sorry, let me out! Let me out! Please. I wanna go home. I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Please let me come home. Don't let him hurt me. He's a bad man, Mommy! John! John, where are you? Help me, John! _John_..." She thrashed against the Morphean foe above her, moaning the word "no" over and over. And then the mortal let out an agonized scream that froze Nuada's blood.

_Danu's mercy,_ he thought, and took a half-step nearer. He had heard such screams before, but from men and women being tortured. What kind of hell could she possibly be dreaming of? Not of Eamonn…not of the wolves…her childhood? _This_ was what she flashed back to every night?

All of a sudden, something thick and dark and choking spilled into the room like venomous blood, and Nuada literally _felt_ Dylan's dream change. Her screams became shriller, more frantic. Her spine arched, her hips lifted, and Nuada _knew_. Even before she begged, "No…no, please…please…I don't want…don't touch me…Eamonn…Nuada…please stop…" he knew. Revulsion and shame choked him. Nightmares, she'd said. Hell's teeth, and now _he_ was the stuff of her nightmares. He staggered toward her as she whimpered, "Don't…don't…no…"

Then she cried out, every muscle stiffening. That cry _wasn't_ one of pain. "Nuada," she moaned. Her voice then was the kind that could easily heat a man's blood. The thought made his stomach clench, because he remembered how her pleas has shattered the last fragments of his control. "Nuada, please…" The air escaped his lungs in a rush that left him dizzy. Nuada fell to his knees in front of the sofa as Dylan begged breathlessly, "Don't stop. Please, _yes…_"

Memory whispered to him, a siren call he struggled to resist. She'd said these words to him before, in the haze of venom and pain and need. Pleaded with him…what had he said to her? She'd begged, _Don't stop_, and he'd groaned, _I cannot stop. I cannot. Never_…A shudder ripped through him. He clenched his hands and strained to shove the memory away. She had felt so very, very good, and he had—

_Stop it,_ Nuada raged at himself. _Stop it! Don't think of it. Don't_ think _of it! Don't think of_ her…

It became easier when Dylan moaned, a sound thick with fear, and began to cry. "No," she begged, weeping. "No…Eamonn…please, don't! Don't…okay," she whimpered. Her shaking hands scrunched in the blanket wrapped around her body. "Okay! I'll do it…just…don't hurt him…"

He wanted to touch her, shake her awake. End the nightmare. But he didn't dare, with memories of her body swamping his skull, wrenching at him with sharp hooks of lust and self-loathing. If he was brutally honest with himself, lying with Dylan had been perfect. As if they had been made for each other. But that had been the Tears, Nuada reminded himself sharply. The Tears had made him need…and she had been there when he needed, quenching the fire…

Oh, gods…oh, gods, he still wanted her. The very thought made him _sick_. His gorge rose—so quickly, so violently, he had to cover his mouth to keep from retching. The poisonous Tears had made him take her, hurt her…but his own body wanted her again.

Hell's teeth, what was _wrong_ with him? That he could lust for her like that, after every sin he'd committed against her…and not only that, but that he should feel that desperate desire while she was caught in the throes of a nightmare that had her screaming and crying for help…

_No_, Nuada groaned silently. No, it couldn't be true. Was his father right? Was he a heartless, soulless monster, without honor or remorse? Had he finally become what Balor had claimed Nuada to be all these years? Had he succumbed to the darkness in him so fully that he'd become just like those animals that had raped and butchered his mother? The Elven warrior cringed from the thought. No, he wasn't like them. He _couldn't_ be like them. He would never…_never_…but he had, stars curse it. He'd raped Dylan over and over again.

_And my, my, think of this—what will your_ father _say about what you've done? Especially after what happened to your poor mother?_ Eamonn's voice echoed in his skull until Nuada almost thought he'd rather carve it out of his brain than listen for one more moment. What would his father say about this? Nuada knew exactly what the king would say. He'd tell his only son that Nuada was a disgrace to the royal family, to Bethmoora, to Balor…to Cethlenn. He'd publically disown the prince, strip him of his title and lands, then have him flogged again…or perhaps this time, his father would simply execute him and have done. But what would happen to his people? To Nuala?

What would happen to _Dylan?_ She _needed_ him…

With another tortured cry his terrified mortal bolted upright, one hand going reflexively to her throat as she dragged in shuddering lungfuls of air. Her hands shook as she pushed tangles of dark hair away from her face. A strangled, whimpering sound escaped her and she covered her mouth with both hands.

"Dylan," Nuada said sharply. His voice sliced through her terror and his need like a knife. "Dylan, it's all right. You're safe." He didn't dare touch her. He knew what would happen if he did. Instead, he added with forced gentility, "You are safe, little one."

Her entire body shuddered violently, then she fell back onto the sofa, gasping for breath. Her eyes were wide open, glimmering in the dim firelight with unshed tears. She didn't move, and neither did he. Only the crackling of the fire and Dylan's ragged breathing infringed on the silence. At long last, crystal droplets spilled from the corners of her eyes. Her lashes drifted down t mark her cheeks with dark shadows as the tears fell silently.

Drawing a breath hurt. His chest felt viciously tight. Still, he managed to murmur, "Dylan. Dylan, do you wish me to go?"

"No," she whispered. Her eyes scrunched shut. "No, don't go. Please."

"Then I shall stay," he whispered back.

Nuada stayed where he was while she cried. He could not go to her…and he could not abandon her. Instead, he sat with his back against one of the chairs and held silent vigil while Dylan wept herself to sleep once more. Nuada was thankful when she didn't dream again.

Once he was certain she slept peacefully, he rose unsteadily to his feet and staggered off down the hall. As silently as possible, he opened the front door and slipped out, to slump on the little flagstone stoop sprinkled with white snow. Leaning against the heavy granite door, Nuada let his head fall back. Let the icy wind and coldly-cutting snow chill his fevered blood.

He wanted her. How could he want her? She was human, for one thing, and even had she not been, he had…he'd _raped_ her, for the gods' pity. How could he call himself honorable, how could he still call himself a _man_, and not a monster, yet ache for Dylan this way?

But he still remembered how it had felt to join with her. The memories of that ecstasy were like poison, slipping beneath his skin and breathing like the sweet burn of whiskey into his brain and heart. A shudder that had nothing to do with the merciless cold of the November night ripped through him. He wanted her. Lusted for her. In any other situation, he would have simply left…but she needed him. He couldn't leave her.

So what was he to do?

In the end, Nuada found no answers out there in the snowbound garden, but the cruel grip of winter allowed him to get control of his hot blood so that he could go back into the cottage and check on the sleeping mortal once more.

**.**

Nuada settled on staying with Dylan for a least the next ten days. Whatever Eamonn had done to ensure it, Dylan wasn't missed at work. Just to be safe, she sent a message to her twin brother to bring her a new cell phone. John's arrival two days after Dylan's first nightmare involved a confrontation between the prince and the mortal whelp. Dylan didn't want to see the boy. The idiot wanted to see her. Nuada refused to let him through the door.

"Who the hell are you?" John demanded. His gray-blue eyes were like shards of dirty ice as he glared at the coldly aloof Elven prince with suspicion and rising anger. "Where's my sister?"

"Dylan is resting," Nuada said in a voice like an arctic wind on a winter's night. The whelp stood perhaps a foot away from him, the cottage threshold a flimsy barrier between Elf and mortal. Revulsion swam like poisonous lamprey in Nuada's blood at being so close to a human. And though he wasn't entirely sure why, the proximity of a male of any species made his gorge rise. An almost-mindless hatred for the pathetic human whelp churned in the prince's belly. Where was this boy, Dylan's own kin, when Eamonn had been raping her? When he'd forced _Nuada_ to rape her?

Nuada realized he despised this boy, this mortal spawn. Not merely for his humanity, but because he was partially to blame for what had happened to Dylan…and to Nuada himself. Nuada _loathed_ him, with a hatred that burned in his guts like poison.

"Give me the device and I will see she gets it."

"Uh, _no_. I want to see my sister. Why does she need a new phone? What happened to her old one?"

Oh, how he wanted to drive his fist into that human face. Ram his fist over and over into flesh. Hear the wretch cry out in pain. Feel bone crumble. See red blood flow. The half-insane rage pulsed in his veins, hot and seductive, goading him on. But no—it would hurt Dylan for him to start a brawl here at her front door. This was her kin. And she needed her rest. Needed what little peace sleep could give her.

Through gritted teeth, a black spot pulsing in time with his heart in the corner of his eye, Nuada said, "It was destroyed. She needs to call her place of employment. Now give me the phone and get out of here before I _force_ you to go."

John scoffed. "I'd like to see you try. I'm a federal agent, buddy. I work for the FBI. You fae may not care about what that means regarding my authority, but it also means I'm trained in hand-to-hand combat. You don't get out of my way, I'll kick your ass. Got it?"

Feral eyes, hot bronze tinged sanguine red, narrowed at the insufferable whelp. Nuada snarled, "Touch me, _and I will kill you_."

The thought of someone—_anyone_, even Nuala—anyone other than Dylan touching him right now filled him with a nauseating fury that had him grinding his teeth so hard his jaw ached. Let the whelp touch him. Let the human filth _dare_ to put a _finger_ on him, and he would see how deadly the legendary Silverlance could be with a blade. Nuada would carve him into pieces with nothing but his twin-knife, and wash away the sickening sense of being unclean with hot, iron-laced mortal blood—

"What's going on?" A soft voice asked from behind him, and the rage churning in Nuada's roiling gut spiked, sending black hatred singing through the prince's veins. He turned to see Dylan standing several feet away, swaying slightly.

She wore a black Elven tunic, one of Nuada's that he'd brought from the sanctuary after speaking to Wink, and nothing else. On Nuada, it would've hit just above his knees; like the others he'd given her, this one fell some ways past Dylan's knees; it showed the healing rug-burn on her shins, though. The sight never failed to rouse Nuada's memories of taking Dylan on her knees. He forced the salacious memory away. The length preserved her precious modesty. His crimson Elven silk sash, minus the Crest of Bethmoora, cinched it about her narrow waist. The sleeves hung well past her fingertips. Just then, she clutched the ends in small, tight fists that she held to her chest. Her shoulders were hunched, and her hair hung in her face.

Seeing her was always like taking a fist in the pit of Nuada's stomach. All the blood seemed to drain from his body, the air to squeeze from his lungs. She was so fragile…so timid…not at all the courageous woman she'd been before. Then, as every time he saw her, Nuada vowed he would find a way to heal the damage done. She couldn't be permanently broken. She _couldn't_ be.

But in the meantime…

"What—the hell—did you _do_—to my _sister!"_ John yelled.

Nuada turned back to see John surge forward. Instinctively, Nuada shoved him back with a snarl. The mortal whelp nearly tripped over the threshold when he stumbled back. Dylan made a soft sound, and Nuada looked over his shoulder to see her take a step forward. Then her eyes widened.

The prince whipped around just in time to take John's fist square in the mouth. Blood filled his mouth, a crimson haze descended across his vision, and he lunged for the human who'd dared to attack him. Nuada's fist reared back, surged forward, aiming for the whelp's face with a driving blow that would shatter bone, but a terrified cry and a sudden heaviness on his arm momentarily distracted him. He tried to shrug off the weight, reaching for his enemy with his free hand.

Then the heaviness was around his neck, something scalding and wet was running down his neck like blood…blood on his skin, hot and wet, stinging with salt…oh, gods, no. He heard Dylan weeping, begging, "No, Nuada, no! Please! Please don't, please!" Oh, gods, no, what was he doing to her? What had he done to her? No, please, not again. Never again, never. He didn't want to hurt her again. Please, gods, no. No!

He jerked back from the weight around his neck, cringed from the blood on his skin, his chest, soaking his shirt. The haze of fury dissipated, leaving only fear gripping him by the throat like a merciless fist and remorse settling like a hot weight in his belly. He realized Dylan clung to him, sobbing into his shirt, shaking. Slowly Nuada came back to himself while Dylan wept.

More tears. Not blood, thank the Fates, not mortal blood stinging with salt and iron. Just tears. Just sad, sad, bitter tears. His fault. Had he hurt her? The whelp, the human, that putrescent _filth_, he'd _touched_ him, and it had been so utterly disgusting, so _violating_, that Nuada had had to lash out or be sick with the touching…_no one_ could touch him, no one but Dylan. She wouldn't hurt him. Wouldn't poison him with a touch, with a venomous caress.

Nuada shuddered at the thought, at the images swimming through his mind. Memories and nightmares. He never let himself think about his own nightmares while waking. Nightmares of memory, Dylan trapped under him, her frantic pleas, the mindless need…No, he wouldn't think of that. Wouldn't allow it to poison him further. He had a task now—to soothe Dylan.

His arms came around her, and he stroked her hair gently. "I'm sorry," he muttered. His knees threatened to buckle; he locked them so as to remain upright. "I'm so sorry. I didn't…I never meant…forgive me." His voice came out hoarse, strained. Nuada cleared his throat. Forced himself to bear up and stop this pathetic weakness. Squaring his shoulders, straightening his spine, the Elven warrior eased his tight hold on the human woman in his arms and said in a much stronger voice, "Forgive me, my lady."

"You're _dead_," John snarled.

He started to step forward, but halted when Dylan screamed, "No, John! _No!_"

"But…but he…"

"Don't hurt him," Dylan cried, tightening her grip on Nuada. "Don't touch him! Leave him alone, _please!_"

Startled, the whelp took a step back. "D…D, I wasn't gonna…jeez, calm down. What happened? Did he hurt you? Someone hurt you. Who was it? Have you gone to the cops? Dylan, talk to me. What's going on?"

Dylan was weeping now, trembling in Nuada's arms. She tried to speak through her tears, fought to get herself under control. The prince murmured softly in her ear, promising her that all was well, that she was safe, that he was here. Eventually she could wipe away the tears are on her cheeks, careful of the healing cuts, and none fell to wet her cheeks again. She drew a shuddering breath.

"Hey," murmured the human male, coming closer. Dylan flinched as he drew near. Nuada hissed a warning. The boy frowned. "Dylan…why…what happened? What's going on?" As the mortal clearly couldn't take a hint, he took another step toward Dylan. Nuada bared his teeth in something to savage to be called a smile.

"Come one step closer, human, and I'll rip you apart," he growled. His hand came up to cup the back of Dylan's head, holding it to his shoulder, tucking her face against his chest. "Do _not_ push me. Can't you see you're distressing her?"

"I just want to know what the hell happened! Who do I have to hunt down and shoot? Was it you?"

Swallowing, Dylan shot a furtive glance at her twin through the curtain of her hair. "His Highness didn't do this to me, John."

"Then who did?" The whelp demanded, looking sick and sorry.

And well he might, Nuada thought acerbically. Where had the wretch been when Dylan needed him? Nuala had never been hurt while out of Nuada's sight. And the one time she'd been hurt while with him…The prince forced the memory of his sister's screams from his mind and focused on the human boy in the entryway.

"A common enemy," the prince said coldly. "_I_ dispatched him. It is none of your concern."

"_Excuse_ me?"

"Stop it," Dylan protested. Though her voice was soft as a whisper, it halted both men in their proverbial tracks. Keeping her hair in place as a mask to hide her injuries from her twin, Dylan added, "Nuada killed the man who attacked me. I owe him my life, John. Now I need my phone, and then I need you to leave. Please."

The wretch sputtered, "What—but—I—what _happened?_ How badly are you hurt? Have you been to the hospital? Do you need anything? I mean…what happened to you? Are you okay?"

A ghost of a smile curved the mortal woman's bruised lips. Did the wretched boy see how it _hurt_ her to force that smile to her lips? Dylan sniffled and leaned against the solid strength of Nuada's body. "I'm fine, John-boy."

"Well…but…did you go to the hospital? What did the doctor say? Did this guy…did he…were you—"

Nuada felt the tension ratchet through Dylan's body. Knew what the human bratling was going to say. He was going to ask her, with no subtlety or finesse, if she'd been raped. Insolent, insensitive brat. Didn't the piece of vermin realize how difficult this was for her? Didn't he see how she struggled to maintain a façade of well-being in his presence?

In a voice nearly bestial with fury, the Elven warrior growled, "Enough of your questions. Give her the device and get gone. Question her again and I will take you out behind this cottage and thrash you like the impudent whelp you are."

The boy looked like he was about to say something—outrage flashed like lightning in the stormy blue-gray eyes—but then those eyes slid to Dylan. Softened. Her twin sighed. "'Your Highness,' was it? Well, you're a dick, whoever you are. Here ya go, D." He handed her the device. "You really need me to go? You _need_ me to?" She nodded. He sighed. "Okay. If that's what you need. Whatever you need. Are you gonna be okay with this guy?"

Another nod and, to both men's surprise, she dropped her forehead against Nuada's chest and nuzzled him. For some reason, it soothed some of the edgy rage in the prince. The whelp sighed again and conceded defeat. After kissing Dylan very carefully on the cheek, with a promise to call her soon, he left her to the prince's care.

Once the boy departed, Dylan seemed almost to deflate. Her head dropped, her shoulders drooped, and it was almost as if the life faded from her body. She trudged back into the den and lay on the sofa. Her eyes never left the flames in the hearth. When Nuada came in to ask how she was feeling—whether she was hungry, thirsty, in any pain—the mortal answered him in toneless monosyllables that made it very clear she simply wanted to be left alone. Concern and remorse a nauseating weight in his belly, he did so.

**.**

That night Nuada jerked awake from a nightmare of screams and blood, flesh and need, to the sound of a single hysterical shriek. Instantly he was out of the living room chair he'd accidentally fallen asleep in, racing down the corridor to the den. He barged into the room to see Dylan huddled in a corner by the fireplace. She clutched his dirk—hilt in one hand, blade in the other—in her white-knuckled fists. Sobbing, rocking back and forth, the anguished screams strangling in her throat now as she clenched her teeth. Blood seeped between the fingers of the hand clutching the dirk's blade. It dripped from her hands onto the carpet like macabre rain.

The terror that had risen up to grab Nuada by the throat eased back. Fresh, red-hot guilt burned in its place. _She must have had a nightmare_, he thought. A nightmare, and he hadn't been there to comfort her.

"Dylan," the Elf murmured gently. Dylan jumped at the sound of his voice. He took two cautious steps forward, hands up and palms out in a show of harmlessness. He noted that she'd discarded the bandages that had protected the rope-burns on her wrists. "Little one. It's all right. _Tá tú__sábháilte_—you are safe. Dylan, can you hear me? Can you understand me? It is all right, little one. _Tá tú__sábháilte_."

"No," she moaned. "No. Not safe. No. Never safe. I can't…I can't d-d-do this, Nuada, I can't, I can't! Help me," she pleaded softly. Her rasping voice was a mere thread of fear and despair. That thread was a noose that threatened to strangle him. New sobs came as she looked at him with haunted eyes. "Please…" The word was a knife driving into his chest. He swallowed hard, took another step toward her. Dylan sobbed, "I just want it to stop. Nuada, please…_c__uidigh liom__.__ Tabhair, c__uidigh liom__, tabhair…_"

_Help me. Please, help me, please…_Oh, gods. How could he resist such a plea?

Moving with excruciating slowness to keep from scaring the incredibly skittish mortal, at last the prince was at her side. Carefully he pried her fingers from around the dirk blade, which was slippery with her blood. He examined her hands: abrasions on the palm that had been clutching the hilt; superficial cuts across her other palm that seeped crimson; and a pair of shallow slices across her too-white wrists, both of which bled sluggishly.

Hesitation marks—he remembered Dylan explaining the term to him once during those two months of conversation and friendship in the cottage. Signs of attempted suicide. Gods, what had she done to herself? Tried to end her own life, only to be held back by…by what?

Lifting her into his arms was too easy; she was so light. Had she eaten recently? He realized he couldn't remember. Putting that aside for now, Nuada set about tending to these fresh wounds. Cleaning the two wrist-cuts first, he applied butterfly bandages before wrapping her wrists with fresh gauze, then bathing the cuts and scrapes on her palms. Those barely bled once he was finished.

Necessities completed, Nuada knelt and carefully took Dylan's hands in his own. They were ice-cold. Trembling. Her skin was deathly white. Looking into her dull, vacant eyes, he could only ask helplessly, "_Cén fáth__?_"

_Why?_ Why would she do this? Why would she seek to give up on life…on him?

"I…I just…" Her lips quavered. She took a ragged breath. Her voice was thick with tears when she said, "I don't know what to do. I don't want to hurt anymore." She shook her head. "I'm so tired, Nuada. I'm just _so_ tired. I can't do this anymore. I can't take it. I can't…"

"Yes, you can," Nuada whispered. He had no idea where the words came from, only that they spilled from his tongue like the blood from her wounds. "You _can_, Dylan. Do you know how strong you are? You are so strong, so brave—you _are_," he insisted when she shook her head. Reaching up, he cupped her face in his hands. Her cheeks were cool to the touch. "You have a warrior's heart, little one. You have a fighter's spirit. I have seen it. I will _not_ give up on you, Dylan…and I pray you, do not give up on me, either. I will see you through this…_mo__laoch__cróga__réamhphósta_."

My brave warrior maiden, he called her. How could she doubt her own courage? Her own strength? He wiped her tears away gently with his thumbs. It hurt to see her so broken, so frightened. She had never been like this, save in the first few days in the sanctuary, and even then her spark had shown through at times. Where was that spark now? Had Eamonn snuffed it out completely?

"Will you trust me?" Nuada asked. "Will you have faith in me to help you through this? Do you believe that I can?" His eyes searched her face. After a long moment, she closed her eyes and nodded. "Swear to me, _mo duinne_," he said. The endearment slipped out without either of them noticing. "Swear to me you'll not do this again."

Dylan swallowed audibly. "I swear, Your Highness."

**.**

When she was asleep at last, Nuada slipped from the room and went to the door. He trembled with each step as it became more of a struggle to take. It took everything he had not to _run_ outside. Quiet as a cat, he slipped out into the cold. The wind blew bitterly from the north, and the snow was white as polished bone as it crunched under his boots. Nuada didn't feel that terrible wintry chill. He felt only the rising rage, the grief, the half-hysterical despair clutching at his throat.

With a strangled cry, he turned and rammed his fist over and over into the bark of one of Dylan's sleeping elder trees. Splinters—of wood and ice—gouged into his flesh. Blood trickled hot from his knuckles to freeze on the snow. His bones cringed with each impact.

A mortal man wouldn't have been able to endure the pain, but an Elf's strength was far greater than a human's. Prince Nuada beat his fist mercilessly into the frozen tree trunk. Until his arm and shoulder ached. Until he'd bitten through his lip to hold in his snarling roars of fury and pain. Until he slumped to his knees in the snow, blood oozing from his battered hand, and he had only the strength to rest his forehead against the icy trunk and shudder.

_Féinmharú_—suicide. She'd tried to kill herself. She'd intended to open those fragile blue veins with his dirk and spill her life's blood on the carpet. He didn't know what to do. He had no idea what to do to help her, and he _had_ to find a way. This was his fault. He should have been there sooner, should have been able to protect her. Instead, he'd been the instrument of her torture. Nuada thought he might be sick. He'd raped her…and Eamonn had used her to rape him…

But no, he couldn't think of that. Couldn't think of hands touching and blood spilling, a wicked red fount. Couldn't think of Eamonn laughing, watching as Nuada took pleasure in a helpless innocent. The sickness of it, of having his very soul invaded…No. He had to care for Dylan. Had to repair the harm he'd done. Whatever it took, he would take care of her. Protect her. Honor and friendship demanded it.

Hell's teeth, his hand hurt. Had he cracked a knucklebone? No matter. It wouldn't infringe on his ability to defend Dylan or care for her. Rising to his feet, Nuada shook out his hand. The cold air had already slowed the bleeding. He flexed his fingers. It would be all right.

He looked to his left when movement caught his eye. Wink stood there, tense and waiting.

"I'm all right," Nuada muttered.

Wink shook his head. "No, Nuada…no, you're not." The troll hesitated, then murmured, "I have not seen you weep so, for anyone, since your mother died."

Startled, the prince swiped a hand over his cheek. Tiny chips of ice had frozen to his skin. When he brushed at them, they tore away with little stinging pains and fell to the snow. Frozen tears. Nuada stared at them for a long moment, unsure what to say. What to think. Finally, he merely shook his head as if shaking away an errant thought.

"I am able to do what's needed," the prince said softly. "I require no more of myself than that."

"Your father has summoned you back to court," his vassal murmured.

Nuada's eyes slid wearily closed, and he heaved a sigh. "Of course he has…but I cannot go yet. When Dylan is well again, I will go before the king."

"He may try to have you killed."

The wan smile curving dark lips was entirely without humor. "Yes," Nuada murmured. "I imagine he will."

**.**

The next day, Dylan called into work, claiming she had the flu. Her employer seemed very sympathetic. After the conversation, the mortal woman turned off her phone, curled up on the sofa, and stared at the fire in the hearth for an hour until she fell asleep.

To Nuada's surprise, he found himself even more worried than he'd been before, when he realized Dylan didn't read her scriptures or pray every morning and night anymore, as had been her habit before the attack. She seemed to withdraw wholly into herself. Nuada sat with her in the den, staring into the flames himself, wondering what was to be done. How was he to discharge his debt to her?

Something had to be done to pull her from this terrible apathy. She wouldn't eat, sipped water occasionally, barely spoke. Perhaps he could take Dylan to see an Elven mind-healer. It would surely do her good. Whatever he did, he knew that after the events of the previous night, something had to happen, and soon.

Several nights later, something _did_ occur at last…but it was the one thing he'd prayed wouldn't happen, for Dylan's sake. He didn't know if her sanity could take it on top of everything else.

Nuada woke in the middle of the night to an odd sound. He lay there for a moment, trying to wake fully. His nose caught the faint sweetness of vanilla-sugar and cream and…did he smell peanuts? And something sour, like…was that _brine?_ How strange…

It took him a moment to shove away the sticky black cobwebs of his nightmares and realize he wasn't smelling things that weren't there, and to realize just what exactly he was hearing—the distant sound of retching. He rose to his feet, still groggy from exhaustion, stiff with the residual ache of his magically-healed wounds, and made his way to the guest bathroom.

Dylan huddled on the little rug on the floor, hunched over the commode, making a concerted effort to—figuratively—spill her guts. Nuada went to her, pulling back her hair to keep it out of her way. There was little else he could do until she was finished being sick. When it was over at last, Nuada wet two wash cloths and handed her one, with which she wiped her mouth. He gave her the second one and she wiped the cool, damp cloth over her clammy face. Then the prince fetched her a glass of water. Dylan rinsed her mouth twice. Then she let Nuada guide her into the den. She half-fell onto the sofa. Nuada crouched at her feet.

She swallowed hard and stared with impossibly large eyes at the fire for a moment, then turned her head slowly to look at the prince. Her lips trembled. She pressed them together until they were nearly bloodless. Shuddered. Her fingers shook as she ran them through the curls tumbling down around her shoulders before she pressed her hand to her abdomen, over the no-doubt sore diaphragm muscles.

"Are you ill?" Nuada asked gently, though he didn't think that was the problem. After a long hesitation, Dylan shook her head. He nodded calmly, as if there was nothing wrong at all. Why was it so hard to breathe? Why did his chest feel so ridiculously tight? It felt as if a cold hand were gripping his ribcage in a merciless fist. No matter. He was not the focus here. Oh, if only he could read her better. If only he knew what she was thinking. But he couldn't, didn't. So he asked, keeping his voice low and soothing, "Are you…unwell?"

_That_ was an entirely different question. It was a delicate way to ask a delicate question of a woman who was not one's lover or wife. Despite the couplings that had occurred between them, despite his desire for her, Nuada didn't consider Dylan to be his lover or even former lover. His charge, maybe. His friend, certainly. But not his lover. So he waited for her to process the question he'd asked, wondering what she would say.

Finally, Dylan whispered, "Nuada…I think…I think…" Her voice trembled, threatened to break. He clasped her hand. Squeezed lightly, trying to bolster her courage. A tear spilled down her cheek, and to his utter astonishment, a wan smile curved her mouth. That smile seemed to lodge in his heart like an arrow. She met his eyes. _"__I mo thuairimse,__tá mé__ag iompar clainne__.__"_

_I think I'm pregnant._

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_**Author's Note:**__ who saw THAT coming? Anyone? I mean I sort of mentioned it in the summary, but did anyone realize that's what I meant? And just a poll—who thinks the kids are Eamonn's, and who thinks they're Nuada's? What do you think this will do to our girl? What about our prince? What do you guys think will happen next? Please review, let me know what you think. I'm excited to hear your thoughts! Loves to you all!_


	11. If I Had Just One Wish

_**Author's Note:**__ here we are with the next chapter, which is dedicated to WhenNightmaresWalked, because she's awesome and is so much help with this fic. So thank you, darlingest! Hugs! And I hope you all enjoy this chap. Loves to you all!_

_PS – This chapter has been heavily revamped from its original version, due to the input of someone who's taken a LOT of sociology classes._

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**Chapter Eleven**

**If I Had Just One Wish**

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_"__I mo thuairimse,__tá mé__ag iompar clainne__.__"_

_I think I'm pregnant._

An odd rushing sensation flooded Nuada's body. For just a moment, the blood roared like thunder in his head and the world seemed to tilt sideways. His fingertips tingled with an odd numbness. Biting the inside of his cheek, he nodded. She would know, of course. It had been a little less than four weeks since he and Eamonn had first lain with her. That was time enough for her to feel the effects of a child. Still, he had to…had to be certain…

"You're…with child?" The words spilled heavy as chunks of cold stone from his lips, though his tone was still gentle. He swallowed, his throat suddenly desert-dry. The very thought sent a bite of something chilly through him. Yet another sin to be laid at his feet. If he'd protected her…if only he'd been strong enough to protect her from that monster…"You're sure?" Was all he asked.

After a moment, she nodded. Her face was white as death, lips nearly bloodless, eyes far too large in her face. No doubt she was reeling from the knowledge of this newest violation. "Pretty sure. I need…I need to see a healer to be absolutely sure, but…but I know."

He pressed her hand again. "What do you wish to do about it?" He asked because he honestly had no idea what she was thinking, what she wanted. Whatever Dylan decided, the Elf prince would support. He had to focus on that and _only_ that…or he sensed something thick, icy, and dark pressing on him, waiting for his thoughts to drift down a path Nuada couldn't allow them to traverse. With child. She was with child. "What will you do?"

Dylan gave a jerky little half-shrug. "I don't know, actually," she confessed softly. Slender hands trembled as she brushed the hair from her face. "I have no idea, I…I've never been pregnant before. I didn't even know if I could get pregnant. I've been…the times when I hypothetically _could_ have, I never did. I thought maybe the trauma…or just the luck of the draw, you know? I don't know. I don't know anything about Elven babies or how the genetics work or whether it'll be like with a changeling or…or anything. And anyway, it really all depends on…on…"

He frowned when she bit her lip. The delicate skin between her furrowed brows wrinkled with strain. Without thinking, Nuada reached up and brushed his thumb over the soft skin, smoothed away the wrinkles, before skimming his fingertips down her cheek. Dylan dropped her gaze to her knees.

"On what?" Nuada asked with careful encouragement. Had to be careful, so careful. They poised on the edge, he could feel it, a precipice, and the abyss yawned before their feet. The wrong move from him could shatter her.

That fey-blue gaze jumped to his. She swallowed audibly. Her eyes darted over his face as if searching for something vital to her existence. Was she looking for condemnation? Did she expect him to disdain her because Eamonn had infected her unwilling body with his poisonous seed? Nuada forced his face to careful blankness, hiding anything that might upset the mortal. Despite this, what little color remained in her cheeks drained away.

She whispered, "Well, I guess it would also depend on who the father is."

_Who the father…but why would it_…And it hit him like a blow from Wink's massive bronze fist. Left him stunned. The words _the father_ echoed in his skull, thundered in his suddenly-hollow chest in time with his galloping heart. He felt like a fool, not to have realized it before. How had he been so blind?

The child could be his.

Amber eyes stared at the mortal on the sofa, at her petrified face, the spark of something he couldn't name and the shadow of fear in the depths of her gaze. Dylan could be carrying _his_ offspring in her womb. She could be carrying the next heir to the Bethmooran throne.

Now it was his turn to swallow. It felt as if he'd been gut-punched. A child? His firstborn? He'd been preparing himself for the idea that Dylan might be with child by Eamonn—and he'd prepared himself to support her, help her in whatever ways she needed to deal with being impregnated by a monster who'd raped them both repeatedly for twisted sport, because Nuada knew it to be his own blasted fault and it was his duty to stand by her—but for some reason it had never occurred to him that she could be carrying _his_ child.

Oh, gods…his child. His. He could be a father. The thought nearly made him sick.

"If…" He had to clear his throat in order to continue. "If it is _his_…what do you wish to do?" Had to focus on that dark possibility. It was the only way to maintain a grip on reality. He couldn't think about it being theirs.

A child…his child, and Dylan's…a baby…what could they possibly do with it? He didn't _want_ it, for the gods' pity. Couldn't possibly want a child with _anyone_. And now? A child now? With a human? What would his father say? What would his people do if they found out? What would happen to his kingdom? It _couldn't_ be of his loins. What in the name of all the gods would they _do_ with it?

"Keep it," Dylan replied without hesitation. Nuada felt foolish, but his eyes widened and his jaw went slack. He stared at her with blatant incredulity. If the child was Eamonn's, she wanted to do _what?_ Dylan pursed her lips, her eyes darting back and forth as if casting about for a way to explain the inexplicable to him. Finally she said, "It wouldn't _be_ his. Don't you see? It's _mine_. It's _my baby_. I _want_ it. And I'm…I'm its mother. I'm supposed to protect it. I have to love it."

A ghost of revulsion shivered down his spine. "No, Dylan. No, you don't." He wouldn't let her do that; wouldn't let her become a martyr because she felt obligated to care for the horror growing within her. "You owe this…this _thing_…nothing."

She flinched as if he'd slapped her. Her bottom lip quivered and a tear spilled down her cheek. She caught the teardrop with one shaking hand, stared at her wet fingertips before dragging her gaze back up to his face. "Thing?" She whispered. "_Thing?_ It's not a _thing_."

"Dylan, you didn't choose—"

"_It's my child!_"

"Dylan—"

"_It's my baby!_"

Nuada rose to his feet and paced to the fireplace, uneasy at the hysteria burning just beneath the surface of her frantic words. Was she trying to convince him…or herself? There was something beneath her voice that sent chilly nausea roiling in his belly. He passed a hand over his face. Took a breath. Then he turned back to the mortal sitting on the sofa. In a carefully neutral voice, he said, "If it's the spawn of that _monster_—"

She shook her head vehemently. "_Don't_ say that. It's not his. It's _mine!_ So what if he sired it? It's going to grow in _my_ body. _I'm_ the one who's going to give birth to it. _I'm_ the one who's going to raise it, take care of it, love it. It doesn't matter who the father is, it's my child. I'm its _mother_. I have to protect it. I have to love it. It's not its fault how this happened! Don't you see?"

"I..." Nuada shook his head slowly, uncertain and baffled. Anger simmered in his veins. No. No, he didn't see. He didn't see at all. She wanted to keep a child she'd never have voluntarily conceived, a being she owed nothing to. Why? Somehow finding his voice, he demanded, "Keep it? You wish to keep offspring of _his_ loins? An infant conceived by force? How could you want…how could you ever bring yourself to love…" He shook his head, unable to continue.

Dylan's hands settled over her lower belly defensively. "It's _my_ baby," she said in a low, intense voice. Her eyes burned with a protective, half-wild fierceness Nuada had never seen from her before. Locking her gaze with his, the prince found himself spellbound by the life that suddenly blazed in once-lifeless eyes. "It's my child. _Mine_. Not his. Of course I want it. Of course I would love it. I…I _do_ love it. I do."

He nodded, though he still didn't know how she could love such a child. But then, she shouldn't have been able to love in the first place. She was human. Humans couldn't love. Yet she did. So was it truly so strange that Dylan could love this unborn babe with all the fierce, driving devotion of a mother, despite its paternal roots?

But if the babe were Eamonn's…if it was the spawn of that monster…Nuada could never look at it as anything but an abomination.

Although what if…just what if…she weren't being truthful? Would she lie to him? About this? Her profession of love had seemed somehow…hollow. As if she didn't quite believe what she was telling the Tuathan prince. The desperation in her voice furthered his unease.

"All right," Nuada murmured, keeping his thoughts to himself. His rage at the thought that the Elf of Zwezda had possibly managed to infect her with a part of himself, so that she would never be able to move past what Eamonn had done to her—that rage burned in Nuada like tenebrous fire, but he swallowed it down, locking it away with the rest of the dark emotions that had festered in his belly, his heart, for the last weeks.

He submersed another ember of rage that had no place in this conversation—rage that she would make this decision without even _asking_ him what he wanted. If the thing growing in her womb was of his blood, did he have no rights, no say? But then…it was her body, was it not?

Though his body had been violated as well. He'd been forced to participate in the potential conception of this…offspring. It hadn't been his choice. He would _never_ have chosen this. So why was he allowed no say in what was to happen? And no matter the creature's paternity, he couldn't be asked to abide the thing. How could Nuada be asked to tolerate the little monster? How could Dylan throw the reminder of his shame in his face this way?

Unless she meant to punish him, some not-so-small vengeance for allowing Eamonn to hurt her…and did he not deserve that? It was his fault for exposing her to the Elf of Zwezda in the first place, his fault for not being at the cottage when the dark Elf arrived. His fault for not being able to protect her.

Fresh rage flooded his veins like black poison, mingling with remorse and grief. His fault. Why shouldn't she seek to punish him?

He swallowed back the fury. Didn't let her see any of it. Moving carefully, he came toward her; took his place kneeling on the floor before her.

"All right," Nuada repeated softly. Did she hear the strain in his voice? He hoped not. Besides, now to ask the question with which he needed to tread _very_ carefully. In a voice carefully devoid of emotion, he asked, "And if…if it is mine?"

To his utter shock, Dylan's beautiful blue eyes filled with tears and she went even whiter than before, nearly gray. Her fingers twitched against her belly. Voice quaking with what Nuada realized was utter terror, Dylan begged, "Please…please, Nuada, please…don't take my baby away from me. Please, you can't. Please. Don't."

"_What?_" Stung, he surged to his feet again. The words spilled from his lips like blood, though he had no idea where they came from. "You think I would do that? With all my other sins against you, you believe I would steal a child—_my_ child, my own flesh and blood—from its mother?"

Though it wasn't his child. It wasn't his own flesh and blood. It wasn't even a child, really. Merely the last of Eamonn's vengeance. Nuada hadn't sired it…or hadn't wanted to. If it turned out the disgusting thing could trace its blood back to his own, then so what? That didn't make him the thing's father. And she _wasn't_ that horror's mother, no matter what she thought. How could she think such a thing? How could she want this…monstrosity? He simply couldn't wrap his mind around it.

But she did, she did want it. So the question became, would he be so cruel as to take something she loved so desperately—or professed to love—away from her?

"You truly think I would be so cruel?"

She shook her head, biting her lip and reaching for him. It was the first time she'd reached for him since that first night after Eamonn's death, when she'd slid her arms around him and held him as he'd held her, the two of them offering mutual comfort. Nuada stared at the pale, slim hand stretched out to him for a long, silent moment, and the emotions that ripped through him like wicked lightning came and went too swiftly for him to fathom. At last, he took her hand in his own.

"No," she whispered with such gentleness it almost hurt him. "Not cruel; you would never be cruel. I know that. You're so gentle, so careful with me. I know you'd never be cruel. But…but if it's yours, then I know that it has royal blood and I know that's important, even if it is illegitimate, and that it makes her or him a target and…and that might mean that I…that I…" Dylan pressed her fingers against her lips. She barely stifled a sob. "Do I have to give up baby? So it will be safe? I…Nuada, I don't think I can do that. I can't give up my baby. I…

"After everything that's happened, I was seriously considering just…just giving up. Ending everything. I've tried so many times before," she confessed in a mere whisper that chilled Nuada's heart. She rolled up the sleeve on the arm stretched out toward him, revealing a mound of white scar tissue at the bend of her elbow.

He remembered that scar, and the other four very much like it; remembered sucking, nipping, licking at the sensitive flesh around the scars until Dylan writhed for him while he…Gritting his teeth against desire and revulsion, he shoved the memory down before it could wreak any havoc.

"I know how to do it," Dylan continued. "I'm a doctor, I know the human body. It would've been so quick, so easy. Easier than…than this. I could've done it while you were sleeping. You wouldn't have been able to do anything, couldn't have stopped me. I could've just let it all go. I tried before. You saw me. I wanted to…so much…all I had to do was just slide your dirk across both my wrists and let the blood flow. I've never wanted to die as much as I did that night."

"Dylan," he whispered, feeling sick. Her hand was icy in his grip. "Why? I know this is hard for you, I…I cannot imagine how hard. But death is not the answer. Surely you know that. You love life so much…"

A slow, somber shake of her head made glossy, dark curls shimmer in the firelight. "No. I don't. Not anymore. I'm so messed up now. Maybe you don't see it, or maybe you just don't get it. I can't do _anything_ anymore, Nuada. This is too much like…what _he_ did to me, it's just too much like the institution. I couldn't handle it."

Ice crept through his veins, cooling the rage and the lust, leaving only a cold dread behind. "What do you mean? How was what _he_ did too close to…"

Dylan dropped her head, hiding behind the curtain of her hair. Nuada's hand stretched out, and with cautious fingers he parted the curtain to see that the fragile mortal had gone white, was squeezing her eyes shut, pursing her lips into a tight line. A memory from their time in the sanctuary suddenly slashed him like a poisoned blade; an exhausted, still-healing Dylan screaming, _They electrocuted me! They beat me! They locked me away in the dark! They starved me! They forced me to take medication! They r_—She'd cut herself off before finishing the word, replacing it with others about her parents' betrayal. He'd paid it no mind at the time, he'd been so focused on the argument. But now…

He knelt with deliberate slowness. "Who was it?" Nuada asked through numb lips. His voice was so empty it would've terrified any warrior that heard it. Dylan's face tightened. The prince cupped her chin, tilting her head up so he could look at that pale, pale face. "Tell me. Who raped you?"

She cringed from the words. "It doesn't matter."

"_Nithe __sé_—it matters." Oh, it mattered. He had to focus on this one thing that mattered, so he could stop thinking about Eamonn, about what his enemy had done to this woman who'd been under his protection. Nuada could lose himself in hunting down this lately-revealed threat. Lose himself completely in finding him, whoever he was, and killing him. The mortal blood would be hot against his skin, the stench of iron burning in his nose, and the enemy's cries of pain would drown out the sounds Nuada couldn't bear to remember—Dylan's moans of pleasure and screams of agony, and Eamonn's laughter underneath it all.

His hands shook. Every inch of skin prickled with an animal awareness as the need to bring down this enemy, the ache to rip them apart, settled over him. Oh, it mattered. It mattered.

"Are they dead?" He asked. His voice was still so terribly empty. How many men had used this woman as their personal and unwilling whore? How often had she been brutally used by mortal monsters? "Tell me they're dead, mo duinne." Dylan shook her head. "Then tell me their names. Tell me now, and I will hunt them down, and then I will kill them—_slowly_—to pay them back for what they did to you." But she shook her head again. Nuada was quiet for a long moment before asking, "How old were you?"

Those slim hands shook harder in his grip. Dylan flicked a glance at him, then stared hard at her toes, which were scrunching and un-scrunching in agitation. She drew several shallow breaths. In a voice that was barely there, she whispered, "I was twelve the first time."

_The first time._ Gods…twelve years old. Barely more than a child. She was just a girl. Just a little girl. And was it…could it have been…

"The adults at the institution?"

Her eyes widened. "No! Well…no. Not…not exactly."

His teeth sank into his tongue to bite back the vile words burning there, and he allowed her to continue, though it was like chewing glass to remain silent.

"It was two boys. They were patients there. They liked to…play games with people. Other kids. I don't know why they went after me. Maybe I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don't know."

"And the adults?"

She shook her head slowly. "They didn't care. The boys' father had money. Power. Influence. They had a system, I found out. If they had someone particularly…fun, they told their father and he would come and see for himself. He wanted to meet me. He…liked me. So they kept me."

"Kept you?" The question was soft, vicious with horror and black fury. "Continued to hurt you?" She nodded. "For how long?"

Dylan swallowed. "Three and a half years."

Nuada jerked back from her and lunged to his feet, swearing savagely. He paced the length of the den at least a dozen times, while Dylan hunched her shoulders and shrank in on herself. He could scarcely keep a grip on his control enough not to drive his fist into the stone wall. His hands itched to wrap around mortal throats and hear the sweet snap of bone. Three and a half years. Three and a half _years_. Then to be gang-raped by a pack of wolves, and then to be caught in Eamonn's spidery web and used for weeks, only to be impregnated by one of her rapists…Damn it. He raked a hand through his hair. Shame and rage nearly choked him. Dammit!

A muffled sound jerked his attention from the crimson haze of fury. He turned sharply to see Dylan had drawn her knees up to her chest. Her face had dropped against her knees, and her frail shoulders shook with sobs. Her fingers twisted in the silk of the blue-and-silver tunic she wore, clutching so hard that her knuckles turned white, so hard the slim hands trembled. The rage ebbed enough for him to think a bit more clearly.

"Dylan?"

"I'm sorry," she wept. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm…I'm so…but I got out, I got out of there." Nuada took a step toward her. Fates, he didn't want her to cry. Hadn't he hurt her enough? "I got away," she continued through her tears, "and then _he_ came here and did it all over again, used me, hurt me. Tortured me in my own house, in my own bedroom, just like…I'd never had a safe place in the institution, then I got out and had one, my own safe place, and then he _ruined_ it. I'm not safe here. I'm not safe anywhere anymore. I'm scared all the time. I can't eat or sleep without remembering…thinking about…and you're here. All the time. I can't stop thinking about…"

He sank to the floor before he fell. The words burned like shards of ice against his bare flesh. _You're here. All the time._ It felt like she'd driven her fist right through his ribcage, to curl merciless fingers around his heart and rip it from his body. It drove the breath from him, shattered his strength. Dylan wasn't looking at him, so he couldn't see her face, but…

"You wish me to leave?" He asked softly.

Her head shot up. "What? No!" She scrambled off the loveseat and scuttled to him, grabbing his arm. It took everything he had not to cringe away from her. "No! You can't leave, you can't! You promised! Please don't leave! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, just don't leave. Please, Nuada." She pressed her face, wet with tears, against his bicep. "Please don't leave. I need you."

"But you don't want me here." He shook his head. He'd been so stupid, he realized. Stupid to think she could ever truly forgive…Not even a saint could forgive what he'd done. How dare he expect forgiveness from her? "I've often wondered how you can bear to have me so near when I, too, hurt you. Violated your body, took you against your will. I've often wondered how you could ever not despise me. It is merely justice that I should repulse you. I understand you wishing me gone, little one."

She lifted her teary eyes to his face. "What? That's not true. I know you don't want to be here, and I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'm so messed up right now, but I can't do this without you. I didn't think I could do it at all until now. I can't do it without you. Please don't go." To his utter astonishment, she wrapped both of her arms around his arm, curled her body around his, and buried her face against his shoulder. "Don't go, Nuada. Please. I can't do this alone."

With a gentleness he did not feel, he smoothed back her hair. "You're not alone, Dylan." So that was why she wished him close; she was terrified of being on her own. And why shouldn't she be? If he'd been with her from the beginning, able to defend her from his enemies who'd sought to use her in twisted games against him, none of this would've happened. "I'm here. I will always be with you, so long as you wish me near." Even if it drove him mad; honor compelled nothing less from the crown prince of Bethmoora. "But…but if you truly wish me to stay, why did you mention my presence as causing you pain?"

Dylan shook her head. "Not causing _me_ pain. _You_. Being here is causing _you_ pain. I know you don't want to be here. I know you were hurt, he tortured you, I know, and I know that it's all my fault—"

"It is _not_ your fault," he said sharply.

"Yes it is—"

"_No._" He wouldn't let her say that. Wouldn't let her believe that. But then a horrifying thought came to him. "Is that why you tried to hurt yourself? Because you feel responsible for what he did to us?"

She sniffled. "No." He waited for several long moments of agonizing silence before she whispered, "Maybe." The soft, single-word confession threatened to gut him. "Partially," Dylan amended. "And just because…Nuada, I couldn't take it anymore. The fear. It's like I'm choking on it. And I…I couldn't even _shower_ without remembering…and it made me sick. And when I see you, I remember how you would…how I would…I remember being with you."

The Elven warrior swallowed bile. "I cannot imagine how hard that must be for you. Remembering…what I did." Because at least when he saw her, it didn't always make him remember the revulsion of what Eamonn had done to him, to both of them. More and more often, he only recalled what it had been like to bed her; the dreamy, drugged haze of yearning and ecstasy. "How I hurt you."

"You didn't hurt me," she whispered, and he jolted. "That's the problem. _He_ hurt me. You…I mean, I got hurt because of quantity, and because _he_ hurt me, then gave me to you. But I didn't feel the pain, and you…you were very…considerate. You didn't just take me and that was it. You made it…pleasurable. That makes it harder."

Oh, how well he knew that. He remembered _very_ well how he'd crawled all over her body, caressing and exploring. It had fired his blood hotter than he'd ever thought possible, flooding his veins with molten gold, to hear Dylan gasp and cry out his name as he'd pleasured her. His world had centered around her, around her body, and around what he was doing to her: the feel of her pressed against him; the rich, oh so sweet scent of her invading his nose as he buried his face against her throat, nibbling and licking over her pulse; her moans of pleasure and desire; how she'd arched her back and sobbed his name, breathless with need…and all of _that_ and more was what she remembered when she looked at him.

Need flared to life beneath his skin, pricking like needles along his spine. Nuada gritted his teeth, but he couldn't suppress the wicked spikes of lust. What was wrong with him? How could he want her? Want her _now_, of all times? She'd just learned she was pregnant, by the stars, and now his body tried to demand he roger her just to make certain of it.

He stroked Dylan's hair, needing to feel the silken strands beneath his palm. Something, anything, to soothe this sudden need. His voice was strained as he murmured, "I suppose I should be somewhat glad of that. I never want to hurt you, Dylan." He'd never wanted _any_ of this to happen, stars curse it. If it hadn't condemned his entire kingdom to a slow death, he would have found a way to travel along the threads of Time back to the past, simply to cut his own throat to prevent this atrocity—or kill Eamonn, if he'd been able. Then there would be no torture, no ravishment, no dark Elf tormenting the two of them.

There would be no rape-spawn infecting Dylan's body. But Nuada did not say that. Couldn't say that. Couldn't possibly. He could only swallow the words, the regrets as bitter as vinegar and wormwood.

They sat in silence for a long while, until Nuada could take no more. Each word was a stone that left his tongue bruised and bleeding when Nuada asked, "So that night when I found you in the corner in the den…you tried to slit your wrists."

She nodded, and that hollow, bloodless feeling returned to him. Dylan added, "But then I thought of you. You'd think I was a coward. You'd hate me. I couldn't do it that first time. But then tonight I thought…I thought maybe I was strong enough, brave enough to finally do it…even though you'd despise me…"

Horrified at this sudden revelation, Nuada breathed, "You would have done that to me?" Her eyes shot to his face, her gaze cloudy with confusion. "After swearing you wouldn't try such a thing again, you would've…" He stared at her. "How could you? You would have taken your own life, without even a goodbye, and left me to discover your body when I awoke? Left me to discover that I'd failed to protect you when I owe you—"

"You don't owe me anything," she said sharply, pulling back a space to glare at the prince. "You—"

"I owe you _everything!_" Nuada thundered, making her cringe even further back from him. "I owe you my life at least a dozen times over! I owe you my sanity. You kept me from going mad with that monster's tortures. Thoughts of you, of how I had to protect you, see you safe…that alone kept me from losing my mind. And if you carry my child in your body…" His eyes, glittering topaz blades, warmed to honeyed amber as they rested on Dylan's middle before sliding back up to her face. "Then you are the mother of my firstborn, and for that, I owe you my very soul."

Because honor dictated such; because honor said that the mother of a man's child was to be revered by him above all other women; because his honor commanded him to offer her the protection of his body forever after, if she carried his child. But if Dylan carried his…if the rotted, putrescent fruit of his loins moldered in her womb and the creature were half-mortal…he knew what he would have to do then.

Nuada reached out, hand shaking, but pulled it back before it could touch her belly. His hand curled into a fist; a dull ache throbbed through his fingers. He didn't think he could bear to touch the nesting place of that…that _disease_.

Instead, he dragged his gaze back to Dylan's wan face. "You want to die, when I have sought to help you remember how to live…"

"I _wanted_ to die. Past-tense. I don't want that anymore. I have a reason to live now. I…I have to live. For the baby."

Sharp slivers of resentment bit the Elven warrior, chilling deep in his belly. So that was where this new spark of life originated. She would live for this…this…_creature_, a child possibly of that depraved monster's loins, but not for him? She would not fight to live for the prince who'd fought for her, killed for her, nearly died for her. The prince who'd proven he would do anything for her…No. She would fight to live for that _thing_.

Dylan continued, "And I didn't go through with it tonight, either—obviously. I was lying awake tonight, thinking about it, wondering if I had the nerve to go in the kitchen and get one of the really sharp knives because you took your dirk back…when I realized I was suddenly really, really hungry. I haven't been hungry, I mean actually hungry, in a while so I went to get something to eat.

"It was so funny," she added with a little laugh. "Do you know what a sour pickle dipped in peanut butter and whipped cream tastes like?" Her little laugh swelled and blossomed into a true laugh after catching a glimpse of Nuada's face.

"No," he replied flatly. "I have not the faintest idea what that tastes like." And if he were lucky, hopefully he never would. Ugh…No wonder she'd been sick, after eating _that_.

Dylan grinned, and the sight was so startling in its brilliance that he simply stared at her for a second until she said, "It's actually pretty delicious. I kinda want another one. So I was eating and suddenly I felt so sick. It was so weird…Only when I was throwing up did I realize just _what_ I'd been eating and how bizarre it was. Then I realized I was pregnant. There were other signs," she added, "but those could be chalked up to stress and the trauma from…from what happened. But those, in conjunction with the weird cravings and being sick…I _knew_. I knew I was pregnant and it was like this heavy fog had suddenly been ripped off of me, and I could breathe again." She shook her head. "I never thought I'd ever be able to say this again, but…but…Nuada, I'm so happy."

Topaz eyes widened. "You're…happy?" Because of that wretched…unnatural…_intruder?_ The creature that had invaded her body against her will? How could she be happy about such a thing? How could she not dread it emerging from the womb with thick, black hair and empty, silver eyes? Dread it being of Eamonn's blood?

"Yes!" Dylan pressed her forehead against his shoulder, catching her bottom lip between her teeth, smiling. "Yes. I'm…I'm going to have a baby. I'm so happy. Of course I'm happy," she added, voice oddly brittle. "I have something to live for. Something I've always wanted. I've _always_ wanted to be a mother, and I thought I'd never be able to. I used to think, if I had just one wish that I _knew_ would come true, I'd wish for a child. Now my wish _has_ come true. So I should be happy, shouldn't I? Of course I should. I'm having a baby." She closed her eyes. "I already love it so much." Her eyes flicked open and focused on his face. "I do. Really, I do. But…" Some of the strained light radiating from her eyes dimmed. "You never answered me."

"About what?"

"If…if it's your baby…will I have to give it up, to protect it? The child of the crown prince wouldn't be safe just with its mortal mother, would it? I know you have enemies. They might try to hurt your child."

Nuada clenched his teeth. She was right; the unholy thing would be at risk here in the mortal realm with her, if it was of his blood. But he knew exactly what Dylan would do if she was forced to give up the creature she carried; the same thing she would attempt if someone were allowed to hurt the creature. He thought of cruel, bleeding slashes across frail wrists. Thought of scarlet life spilling from gasping veins. Thought of cradling Dylan's cold, lifeless body in his arms…and the Elven warrior squeezed his eyes shut against the image and the clutching sickness in his belly. No. No, he couldn't break her that way. She _needed_ this unnatural issue to reclaim her sanity. He'd wondered what was required to rekindle her spark and help her find her strength again. This…_child_…was it.

"If it is…not _his_ offspring," he had to force the words out, "then I will do whatever it takes to ensure you two remain together." Anything, so long as she never felt such despair as to try taking her own life. But if the creature were half-mortal…and its magic was too powerful…did he dare keep such a promise? If the poisonous weed had taken root from Nuada's own seed, and it possessed the power of the heir…it would poison the kingdom if it became the crown prince after him, and then king. Poison the kingdom…and what then?

His fingers, twined in Dylan's hair, twitched. So many dangers loomed, so much threatened this thing Dylan seemed to want so much. Honor demanded he do what was necessary to protect both the mortal and her unborn offspring, just as it demanded he say what came next, though the words filled him with a sick sense of dread. "I can discover if…I can learn the paternity of the…child. By testing its magic. I can do it now, if you wish."

Silver-washed blue eyes lit with a pale imitation of hope, and Nuada was reminded forcibly that she still walked the tightrope between sanity and the black gulf of mind-shattering pain. Would this spawnling hold her anchored, or become the tipping point that broke her?

"You can?" She asked. "How?"

"I possess the gift of mind-touch," he explained tonelessly. "Do you wish me to do this?" Dylan nodded. "I need you to stand." When he'd helped her to her feet, he went down on his knees and lifted his hands to splay across her lower belly. The blue silk was smooth and cool beneath his palms. It unnerved him to think that beneath the layers of flesh and muscle, a new and mostly-unwanted life nestled in Dylan's womb. "You may feel warmth or a tingling sensation," he murmured. "That is perfectly normal."

"Okay," she said. She offered him an uncertain but brave smile that—in a completely different situation—would have lifted his heart. "Go for it."

Nuada closed his eyes. The carpet was rough through the silk of his trews; the toes of his boots flexed into the thick fibers as he forced himself to concentrate on what he was about to do. There was no room for dread, for uncertainty. No room for disgust at the thought of potentially touching the life-force of Eamonn's _spawn_.

Clearing his mind, he cast out with his senses in search of the life inside Dylan's body.

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_Author's Note:oh you knew I wasn't gonna answer this question right now. Hehehe. Ya gotta sweat for it a little. Lol. So…thoughts? Questions? Comments? Smart remarks? I love you guys. Ta-ta! Leave me reviews, please, 'cause I'm at work, and it's hard. Hugs!_


	12. A Choice Stands Before You

_Author's Note:__ so I wanted to upload this chapter at a certain time, then realized I needed to reupload chapter 11, too, and I'd forgotten the new version at home on my computer (I'm at the library). So I had to send my husband back to get it so I could upload them both together. Grrrr…But hopefully by the time you read this, everything will have worked out. So hopefully I can say, "Hope you all enjoy the chapter!"_

_Huggles! And thanks to WhenNightmaresWalked and my sister for helping with the emotions and reactions in this chap._

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Chapter Twelve

A Choice Stands Before You

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Dylan watched Nuada's face very carefully, as if her entire existence hinged on the subtlest shift in his expression. In a way, it did. For the last several days she'd slowly been sinking into a sticky gray fog that had ever so patiently been swallowing her up. Nothing had seemed to matter—not Eamonn, not John, not her faith, not work…not even Nuada. Just that she let herself fall into an odd, hazy sort of half-sleep where nothing could touch her. She was alone, floating amidst the gray fog, where she didn't have to think of the fortnight she'd been Eamonn's weapon against her prince. She didn't have to think or remember anything.

But somehow that single flash of hunger had woken her up, stirred her enough that she'd gotten off the couch, stumbled to the kitchen, and gotten something to eat. The food she'd eaten had been absolutely marvelous. The long, fat green pickle had been crisp, deliciously sharp with brine. Scooping out a heaping tablespoon of creamy peanut butter to slather over the end of it had seemed completely normal…at the time. The final touch had been the dollop of whipped cream on top, to give it a little sweetness. For the four minutes it had taken her to eat that pickle, she'd been in heaven. The indescribable need to consume the entire thing as quickly as possible—while still savoring the odd assortment of tastes—had been the center of her universe. Afterward, she'd shambled back to her sofa and lay down.

Then had come her mad dash to the bathroom to be thoroughly sick. Goodbye, delicious pickle. Goodbye, peanut butter and whipped cream. Hello, nausea and pain. But every sensation had come through so clear and so sharp, it had been like being slapped awake after sleeping off a long illness.

Now the world blazed in riots of color, cacophonies of vibrant sound, intense aromas. Her skin was remarkably sensitive; not the way it had been with the Tears, where anything but a man's flesh touching her had been agony, but a strangely focused awareness of everything around her—Nuada's hands on her belly, her own hair against the back of her neck, the coolness of the silk tunic on her arms and torso, velvet-rough carpet under her bare feet.

The world had come back to her…or perhaps she had come back to the world. Resentment niggled inside her at being forced to come back this way, so abruptly, like being dumped in a pool of ice-cold water. She didn't _want_ to be back. She didn't _want_ to live in this world where Eamonn had shattered her only safe haven and…

But she wouldn't think about that now. Now Dylan's focus was only on Nuada, who sought inside her body with his innate magic to determine who had sired the child she'd always wanted, the child she'd never thought she could have.

The child that had forced her to emerge unwilling from the peace of the gray fog.

No. No, she couldn't think like that. She wasn't supposed to think like that. This was a baby. Her baby. Something good out of this nightmare. Something that was supposed to be wonderful. Something that might make it all worth it…if she could just have this one beautiful thing that she'd always, always wanted, then…then what? Then what had happened to her would be worth it?

Black ice frosted the inside of her chest at the thought. A vicious, hissing voice snarled in her head, _No. No, it won't be worth it. He made me a whore, and now I'm pregnant, when I never wanted to have his baby. I wanted to be a mother, but not like_ this. _He made me his whore. Now I'm carrying his child?_ Sudden nausea made her bite her lip until she tasted blood. Tried to calm her thoughts. _The baby might not be Eamonn's_, Dylan told herself. _It could be Nuada's…and even if it_ is _Eamonn's, how is that the baby's fault? It's not. Blaming the baby for that would be…it would be wrong…wouldn't it? Besides, he's taken nearly everything from me. He took my house, he almost took my sanity. He took my body. I am_ not _going to let him win by taking_ this _from me, too._

But the argument inside her head seemed strangely hollow. She still felt vaguely detached from everything, despite the lifting of the fog. She was still so tired. Everything seemed so…distant…except the immediacy of the baby. And the thought of the potential life inside her sent something arctic shivering through her body. Dylan tried to examine the emotions swelling and roiling inside her like some turbulent sea. Was she…unhappy about the baby?

_No_, she insisted silently. _No. I've always wanted a baby, and now I have one. The baby can't help how it was conceived. It's not its fault. The circumstances are horrible, but I can take something wonderful out of this torture. Of course I'm happy about the baby. Of course I am. I should be. I absolutely should be. I love my baby already. I do. I love it, no matter what. I don't care if it's Eamonn's, too. I don't. I don't care. I_ won't _care. I love it. I'm supposed to love it and protect it, and I do. I will. I love the baby. I—love—the—baby._

Didn't she?

She shoved the thought away, hard, where she wouldn't have to think about it, see it, remember it. Of _course_ she loved the baby. She'd wanted to be a mother for so long. Now that she had the opportunity—even if it hadn't been her choice to conceive now, this way—she was going to accept that opportunity and be grateful that this one good thing had come from all that horror. With that thought, she focused once more on Nuada's face.

Nuada's slender, blond brows furrowed in concentration. His lashes made silvery crescents against the moon-paleness of his cheek and the darkness surrounding his eye-sockets. Dylan had noticed, in a vague and distant way, that those rings of shadow had slowly been deepening over the last several days. The firelight brought out glints of gold against Nuada's lean jaw, his cheeks and strong chin—rough stubble, indicating he needed to shave. Dylan wondered absently what it would feel like to run the pads of her fingers over that stubble.

Nuada's hands were a warm weight against her stomach as his fingers curled slightly, cupping the fullness of her lower belly almost protectively. Tingles spread across her skin beneath the long tunic she wore, originating at the centers of Nuada's palms and spreading outward. Warmth stole through her stomach, spilling up her spine and stretching fingers of golden magic through her chest.

The ash-blond brows shot up, then knotted again. Nuada cocked his head. Frowned fiercely. Then his lips parted in obvious surprise and the Elven warrior drew in a quick, sharp breath that was almost a gasp. His eyes snapped open and he jerked his hands back from her stomach.

A trickle of ice shivered down Dylan's spine. What was that look in his eyes? Surprise and what else? Dismay? Anguish? A knot formed in the pit of Dylan's stomach. Was the child Eamonn's, then? She wouldn't care. She _didn't_ care. It was her baby, her blessing, and she wouldn't let anything stand in the way of them being together. She wouldn't, she wouldn't, she wouldn't!

But if Nuada should hate her for keeping the baby…if he couldn't tolerate her decision to keep a child conceived by force…

_Thing_, he'd called it. That _thing_. Tears stung the mortal's eyes, but she hastily blinked them back. Nuada hated the baby. She could tell. How obvious did it have to be, when he said things like that about it? Would he hate her, too, for loving it? Or at least _trying_ to love it? No, there was no trying. She _did_ love it. She _did_.

Was he starting to hate her for that already? And if it turned out to be his child, not Eamonn's, would Nuada hate her even more? A half-mortal child, a bastard to embarrass him at court, on top of being saddled with a human whom everyone would know had been the prince's…well, the court would think her his lover, which would humiliate him. Would he hate her for all of that, too? Hate the baby even more than he did now?

Nuada cleared his throat. The sound was like a rifle shot in the tense silence. Dylan's eyes focused on the prince on his knees before her. He drew a breath as if to steady himself. Met her eyes.

"Well…you're certainly correct," the prince murmured tonelessly. "You're…you've been impregnated." She didn't think he noticed her flinch at the cold word choice. Impregnated. Not "with child," not "pregnant," not anything to give away how happy she was. Already he was distancing himself from her, from the baby. Dylan bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying. Nuada continued in that same emotionless voice, "I could sense the…the heartbeat."

"Is…" Dylan swallowed the hitch in her throat and whispered, "Can you tell if it's healthy? It's healthy, right?" That was important, wasn't it? Yes. A mother was supposed to care about her baby being healthy. A good mother _would_ care. Dylan wanted desperately to be a good mother. She was supposed to care. She _did_ care. She wanted the baby healthy.

An odd look twisted the prince's handsome features into something barely recognizable. "It means so much to you, doesn't it? This…" He trailed off, his eyes fixing on her middle. A strange, burning _something_ smoldered in his eyes.

Frigid tightness invaded her chest, twisting and clutching like the lethal cold of an ice sprite's grip. He'd been about to say, "This _thing_." Or maybe something worse. Monstrosity? Abomination?

Somehow, Dylan managed to nod. "Of course it does." Nuada's eyes slid closed. She watched as something like fury passed over his face before vanishing, as if behind a cloud. Twisting her fingers in the folds of the tunic to keep her hands from shaking, she asked, "So? Did you discover who the father is?" Her heart hammered mercilessly against the cage of her chest.

"Does it matter?" He asked suddenly. His voice was still empty, but something shimmered beneath the question that was too close to a slap. Shards of winter crystal bit deep into her heart as she opened her mouth. "To you," Nuada added sharply. "Does it matter _to you_ who sired it?"

Glacial topaz locked with exhausted, rainswept blue. Dylan shook her head. "I only need to know so I can protect it."

He scoffed; it was almost as if he'd slapped her. "Protect it. Of course. That _is_ what is most important to you, is it not? Protecting it." Dark lips twisted into a ghostly mockery of a smile that faded away as swiftly as it had appeared. "Of course," he muttered, eyes hard. "Why should it be any other way?" Swallowing hard, the Elven prince cupped Dylan's belly again, his palms gliding over the natural fullness of her body. He closed his eyes. Tendrils of warmth twined in the pit of her stomach once more as Nuada touched the life inside her again. He made a soft sound Dylan couldn't decipher. Cold chilled Dylan's cheeks, her fingers. Then Nuada pulled his hands away. Opened his eyes. Slowly he raised his head to meet her gaze.

"Well?" Dylan whispered, heart suddenly pounding.

Glacial topaz eyes slowly thawing to gold slid from her face to rest once more upon her middle. He reached out and laid his hand, fingers splayed, across her lower belly, over where the unborn baby nestled inside her. His touch was gentle, but his face was curiously blank.

"They're mine," he breathed. "By the Fates…they're _mine_."

A fierce burst of relief shot through her chest at the word, "mine." Nuada's baby? Nuada's baby, her baby—_their_ baby—growing inside her? Shame quickly followed that spurt of quick and sharp relief. She wasn't supposed to care. It wasn't the baby's fault who its father was. She wasn't supposed to care.

_Not only am I a whore, but I'm a bitch, too,_ Dylan thought before she could stop herself. She squeezed her eyes shut, the better to concentrate on blocking out the harsh voice that sneered at her for being so relieved by the paternity. Her teeth sank into her tongue as the voice hissed at her, _Would serve me right if I got pregnant by Eamonn. I shouldn't have let him…shouldn't have let…I should've stopped him from…_

But then the rest of Nuada's words penetrated, shattering the vicious thoughts circling like sharks in her exhausted mind. Dylan's eyes shot wide and her mouth fell open. For a minute all she could do was gawp. Finally she managed to splutter, "_They?_"

"Twins," Nuada whispered. An incredulous, bitter laugh somehow slipped past his guard to spill from his lips. "Of course it would be twins. A boy and a girl." His fingers caressed her belly through the silk of the tunic. "You carry my children within you. My first- and second-born." To Dylan's surprise, he closed his eyes, took a strangled breath, and then allowed his forehead to rest against the bony protrusion of her hip. "Why did this have to happen? Why twins? To double my shame? To see me doubly disgraced? Shades of Annwn…why must there be a child at all?" His voice softened, and Dylan thought he might've actually forgotten she was there when he murmured, as if to himself, "Can the nightmare simply not _end?_" Though she couldn't see him, she could tell Nuada was gritting his teeth when he added in a low growl, "Why? _D__iabhal é_, what more is required of me?"

Abruptly she pulled back from him. She suddenly couldn't bear to have anyone touch her, not even him. Especially not him. Not while she was still reeling from the despair in his voice over discovering the babies growing inside her were of his blood. Dylan stumbled back from her prince, shaking.

Nuada's fists clenched until his knuckles burned white and his hands shook. He drew a shuddering breath. Then he met her eyes. All the blood drained from Dylan's face at what she saw in his gaze.

Rage. Such terrible rage, mingled with hopelessness and self-loathing, resentment and grief, shame and an odd, lost little-boy expression she'd never seen on his face before. It seemed so out of place, that little-boy look, and yet…and yet it didn't. But what stunned her was the anger in his eyes. It turned those eyes to glacial knives of glittering, razor-edged topaz. Dylan took another step back, and her knees hit the sofa. She sat down abruptly.

"You want these…these…you _want_ this?" Nuada demanded. "You wish to carry to term, and bear offspring conceived through violent rape? Why?"

Lips trembling, Dylan hunched against the back of the sofa. "Because…I…I'm their mother."

"You didn't choose to be, just as I did not choose to be their…" He trailed off, and his expression twisted viciously. "Sire," he spat. "Why do you claim to want this? What woman would want this? What do you think you owe these…rape-spawn?"

"Don't say that," she whispered. "Don't call them that."

The Tuathan warrior lunged to his feet with a snarl and paced to the fireplace. Dylan watched him, wide-eyed, as he savagely stirred the fire. He stared at the flames, his back to her, for several minutes. His shoulders were stiff with some hard, violent emotion, his spine rigid. His fingers drummed rapidly on the mantel. Just when Dylan thought she might go crazy from waiting, he turned back to her. The firelight limned him in crimson and orange, turned him to a shadowy silhouette whose expression she couldn't read.

"Is it your faith?" Nuada asked in a low voice tight with fury. "Is that why you seek to force this on us both? Because your faith forbids you from ridding yourself of the consequences of your rape?" Dylan's hands shook as she raked them through her hair, but didn't answer. She didn't know how to explain…"Is that it, then?" He snarled. "What sort of God forces His children to bear such shame? To endure such horrors?"

"Through God's power, the Son of God has endured that and worse for every one of us who requires God's grace," she said dully. "But no. That's not it." Nuada stepped away from the hearth, giving the firelight room to cast across his face so that Dylan could see his baffled anger. "I could go to my bishop. I could pray and fast and counsel with him, and try to decide if aborting the babies is the right thing to do, or putting them up for adoption through the Church. Both are options in this case."

"But you won't."

She shook her head wearily. It suddenly seemed like such a Herculean effort to even hold her head up, much less try to explain this to Nuada. She didn't know what to say, how to explain…and she was so tired. The gray fog was seeping back into her, weighing her down until she could barely think.

Suddenly Nuada was in front of her, too close, too immediate, too _there_. Rough hands gripped Dylan's shoulders and he shook her lightly, carefully. Her gaze snapped to his as she made a soft, frightened sound. Leaning in until she couldn't have escaped him if she'd tried, Nuada scanned her face with piercing eyes that threatened to strip the wisps of gray fog away, leaving her so terribly vulnerable.

"Do you want children so desperately that you will accept them any way that you can get them? Do you value yourself so very little? Don't you care that you had no choice, no say in any of this? Does it not matter to you that these _offspring_ were conceived without consent by you or I? That a madman has sentenced you to servitude to these…these creatures, for the rest of your life? He has chained you to the heinous tortures that he inflicted on you, chained us both, and you're going to allow him to do this? To reach beyond his coward's grave and continue to rape and violate us this way? Does none of this matter to you?"

Dylan was crying now, the tears scalding as they trickled down her cheeks. Biting her lip until blood welled up in tiny ruby droplets, she shook her head, whispering, "No. I can't let it matter. I can't let it."

"_What?_"

"I can't let it matter!" She jerked away from him, scrabbling across the sofa to put some distance between them. "I can't let it matter! I _did_ have a say! My entire life has been hell, but I made it through because my faith told me how. My faith told me that before I came here, my God warned me I would be tested to the breaking point, but never past it. That I agreed to that testing before coming to this life because whatever I suffered would be worth it in the end. I've held to that ever since converting when I was young. I've held to that, and it's kept me from losing my mind. I lost my grip on that truth for a while, but now…I _have_ to hold to it now, or I might as well just ask you to drive your dirk into my chest, because if that's not true, then why am I even here? Why survive, if there's nothing to survive for?"

She leapt to her feet, pacing back and forth in sharp, short strides as she hugged herself. The words practically seared her throat as she continued, unable to look at Nuada, "Everything that's ever happened has made me stronger. Better. If my life hadn't gone the way it had, I never would've met you. Or if I had, I might never have been okay enough with you to become your friend. We might never have grown close like we did. And when things were darkest, I couldn't see what was going to come of it, how it could ever be worth it. I can't see that now. I don't know if I'll ever see it. But maybe—just maybe—being pregnant is one of the things that's supposed to get me through, one of the things to make it all worth it. I don't know! All I know is that I have to believe these things happen for a reason, or I'll lose it."

Dylan stopped short. Swiped at her cheeks with trembling hands. Then she looked at Nuada, who stood immobile, as pale and ethereal as moonlight in winter. Only his eyes were alive. They blazed like amber fire as they studied her face. Dylan had the terrible feeling that the Elven warrior saw a lot more than she guessed at, or wanted him to see. But she didn't comment on that. She only looked into his eyes and whispered, "I have to believe there's a reason for this. I have to…or I'll die. I won't be able to take it anymore. And I can't believe the reason I was raped until I got pregnant is because I'm supposed to give up the children I'm carrying. I can't believe that. That _can't_ be the reason. It just can't be. Which means that for some reason, I'm supposed to keep them."

Nuada ran a hand through his hair, clearly unsettled by what she'd said. Dylan waited for him to speak. Waited, hugging herself, for him to tell her what she was positive was on the tip of his tongue—that if she was going to not only carry, but raise the children from her rape, then she was a filthy whore who deserved what Eamonn had done to her.

The prince's face was expressionless when he asked, "Have I no say in this?"

Her eyes slid closed as she fought to hold back a freshet of tears. Swallowing salt, she managed to whisper, "I don't want to…pressure you. I know you didn't want this. I…suppose…if you just can't stand the idea…you can wash your hands of me. Us. No one has to know they're yours. I mean, they're illegitimate, so they're not in line for the throne or anything. You'll get married one day and have more kids, so…" She shrugged wearily. "I don't expect you to do anything you're not willing to do, Your Highness."

He sighed, then said coldly, "Let me think on this."

She nodded, and went back to the sofa on unsteady legs. Sinking down, Dylan let herself slump over and curl up. Unbearably weary, she closed her eyes and tried to draw the silvery gray fog around her like a blanket so she could sleep.

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Two days later, evening had fallen again and Nuada watched Dylan sleep from his place in the armchair, his soul burning within him as he considered how everything had changed in such a short time. He was to be a father. Dylan, a mortal, was the mother of his unborn children. He now had a potential heir to succeed him when he became king—whenever that happened. The children were in danger if he left them in the mortal world with Dylan, but Dylan would be in danger in Faerie as the mother of his children, unbound to him in any way save that single link of parenthood. Nuada knew he couldn't leave the future prince and princess of Bethmoora here in the mortal realm…but he couldn't take them from Dylan, either.

_All I know is that I have to believe these things happen for a reason, or I'll lose it…I have to believe there's a reason for this. I have to…or I'll die. I won't be able to take it anymore…_ No, he couldn't take them from her. She would surely go mad.

_I have to believe there's a reason for this. Have to believe there's a reason. I have to believe these things happen for a reason._ A reason. Oh, gods, what reason? Where was the light at the end of the darkness? Where was the respite at the end of the trial? Could the new life in Dylan's womb be that reason? It couldn't be…could it? How could such a thing be the reason she needed, when she could have had it in almost any other way?

And what was his reason? What made his shame, his torture, the cruelties of this past moon…what made it all worth it to him? What could heal the soul-wounds he'd incurred in the past four weeks? Was there _anything_ in this world that could wash away the sins he'd committed?

He scrubbed at his face. Tried, with little success, to suppress the memories of the night before. He didn't want to think about that moment when he'd first felt the tiny, dual heartbeats fluttering against his mind and his magic like butterfly wings. The taste of honey, the scent of heather and the flowers known as bells-of-Ireland, the sound of plovers singing—it had all washed over him when his magic had touched the small beings in Dylan's womb, telling him that these little ones were of Bethmooran blood. _His_ blood.

The agony and despair that had struck in that moment of realization had been nearly crippling. He'd raped an innocent woman, seeded her, and now she carried his offspring. The disgrace he'd brought to his bloodline could never be expunged. He'd lost his honor already, but now to have that fact rubbed in his face…it was as salt in the festering wound. It burned like acid in his heart. What was he to do now? With everything she'd told him last night, there was only one thing _to_ do.

He would have to go to the king, explain what had happened, reveal his shame in what Eamonn had done to him…what _he_ had allowed Eamonn to do to Dylan, because he'd been too weak to protect her properly. The children would be publically acknowledged as his own. Their potential mortality would be a problem, of course. If on their birth they connected to the Bethmooran lands with their magic, it could poison the kingdom forever…unless something could be done about it. Perhaps Wink could suggest something that would protect them, and Dylan, while still ensuring the well-being of his people.

And Dylan…Dylan would…if she agreed, then Nuada knew what was necessary to protect her, as well.

Nuada buried his face in his hands as the magnitude of what had happened and what needed to be done about it crashed down on him. His father would learn of the fortnight he'd spend under the influence of the Tears. The king would _never_ believe Nuada to have been a victim. Not the mighty Silverlance. If Balor didn't kill him, or send him into permanent exile in some backwater royal estate, that was only of practical consequence. His father would still despise him even more than he did now.

And Dylan…she despised him, too. He knew she did. He could see it in the way she'd withdrawn from him after they'd argued upon discovering the infants' paternity. She'd barely eaten a thing since that night, spoken not a word to him, and done nothing besides suffer bouts of morning sickness, take a shower, and lay on the sofa—nearly exactly the things she'd done before discovering the existence of her offspring. The terrible black depression that had lain upon Dylan like the thick, choking fog she'd spoken of seemed to have returned since Nuada had revealed he was the father of her children, and that he wasn't exactly pleased by it.

If it had been Eamonn who'd impregnated her, then it was just another of the dark Elf's sins against her. But _he_ had done it. He, Nuada, who'd sworn to protect her. He'd violated her yet again, leaving a piece of himself behind that would forever mark her as having been his unwilling plaything for those terrible fourteen days of nightmarish pleasure. Just the thought of those two weeks made every inch of his skin heat, made his hands shake. The thought of her during that time, how they'd come together again and again, burned up and down his mind like a living flame. Did she know of that shame, as well? Did she know he still lusted for her body even after he'd sated his hunger so many times before? If not, and she learned of it, would he be able to bear the fresh draught of hatred?

Self-hatred burned in his belly, a greasy black knot smoldering in the pit of his stomach. Eamonn had done this to him. Eamonn had made him… made him into…A shudder ripped through the prince. There was no other word for it: Eamonn had turned him into a whore, just as he had Dylan. In his own way, Eamonn had used Nuada for his pleasure, violating him, using _her_ to violate him as well. And now…now his life would be forever despoiled because of the twin lives that had been created.

Unable to bear being so close to Dylan any longer—not with these thoughts riding him—he surged to his feet and stalked silently from the room.

The wind was howling when he stepped outside, but the prince didn't care. Only small flurries of snow fluttered around him, sparse whirlwinds of ice crystals, while the bitter late November wind slid icy fingers down the back of his shirt. Gooseflesh spread across his skin. Empty topaz eyes gazed up at the full moon.

Outside, away from everyone and anyone, he tried to think. Tried not to remember. He didn't want to explore the memories swimming beneath the surface of his thoughts…such delicious, horrifying memories.

_Admit it, Silverlance_, Eamonn's voice hissed in his brain. Nuada shuddered. _Admit it. You enjoyed every moment you were inside her. You want her again. You'll never forget what it was like—the heat, the sweat, the need burning in your guts and your loins. She's in there, waiting for you. She'd be willing, you know she would. All you have to do is get your hands on her and she'll spread her legs and_ beg _for you. That's what you want, isn't it? To hear her beg?_

"_Éist suas_—shut up," he ground out from between clenched teeth. "_Éist suas_,_ éist suas_, _éist suas__!_ I don't want that. I don't want her." He knuckled his eyes as he added in a low, savage whisper, "I won't hurt her again. Never. _Never_, dammit. I won't." He bit his tongue until blood spilled into his mouth; anything, any pain, to suppress those memories…

Like Dylan caught between two men half-insane with need, the taste of Dylan's…or the memory of Dylan pinned between Nuada's body and the cool stone wall while Eamonn had goaded him on. Sour bile flooded the back of his throat as recollection after recollection stole into his head: Dylan's soft weight and sweet words in his ear, and over her shoulder he could see Eamonn, silver eyes greedy with lust, panting raggedly as the two Elves used the woman caught between them.

How could he not have cared? Nuada snarled silently at himself. How could a man who made claims to honor, as the prince did, have been so intoxicated by the poison, by that lovely body, that he didn't care Eamonn had been there, using her right along with him?

Tá brón orm_, Dylan_, Nuada thought. His hands convulsed into fists, his nails digging into his palms. Desire burned in him along with the ever-present rage and sick shame. Every muscle in his body tensed until it ached. With a groan that was half-lust, half-despair, he slid to the burning cold flagstone stoop and bowed his head. _I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It won't stop, Dylan, I'm so sorry._ He'd left hideous bruises on her thighs. He remembered that; smudges of black and violet on the fragile skin from the force of his impassioned thrusts. _I'm so very sorry. I didn't want to…I don't want to…_

And now there was a child. Children. How was he to care for an emotionally fragile mortal woman who was carrying his children? He hadn't been able to protect her then; how was he to protect her _and_ her offspring now? His back was still healing—sped up by a visit to a healer that very first night of freedom, but the already-damaged muscles had been torn badly by the constant rutting and beatings, not to mention the effort of killing the Elf of Zwezda—and he would no doubt be flogged again upon returning to Findias, and refused the services of a healer. He'd be lucky if his father's justice didn't cripple him. How was he to care for Dylan? For her children? _Their_ children?

Disgust rose like bile in his throat when a tiny quiver of relief whispered through him. What right did he have to feel such for even one child, much less two? He had no right to feel anything because Dylan, a woman he respected and admired, was carrying _his_ children and not Eamonn's. She hadn't wanted this. Of course she would put a brave face on it, and of course she would force herself to love the infants, but _he_ had _no right_ to be relieved about that. He had no right to be relieved about anything.

They'd been so small. So indescribably small. So innocent. He'd felt it the moment his mind had touched theirs. While cocooned in their mother's body, their thoughts were as inextricably linked as his and Nuala's had once been. Not even thoughts, really. Merely a faint sense of simply _being_, doubled, faintly tinged with the genders of their souls—one boy, one girl. Their bond would be strong once they were born; not as strong as the crown prince possessed with his sister, but strong. And he'd touched their simple minds and felt their innocence, their simple lack of knowing and understanding the dark things of the world. It had been all he could do to remain stoic instead of collapsing into Dylan's arms and weeping at the purity of that brief connection, when he himself felt so sullied by what he'd experienced in his forty centuries, when they knew nothing of it.

Would Dylan's offspring hate him when they were old enough to learn the truth of their conception? Or would his father ensure that they hated him from the moment of their birth? Would Dylan try to stop Balor's mind-poison…or would she encourage such thoughts in her little ones, to protect them from the darkness in their sire? Would her children be like him, twisted and angry, or like her? Gentle and kind?

"I don't want them," he whispered so softly that even the wind didn't hear him. He shoved his fingers into his hair. Shuddered. "I'm going mad, I…I _can't_ want them. But she does. Or feels she should. She needs them, and I…"

It was pathetic, but somehow in that moment of connection with Dylan's son and daughter—and afterward, when he'd listened to her try to explain the unexplainable, why she should want to keep a child conceived by force—her need for _some reason_ for the madness had reached out and caught him by the throat, sending shocks of fear through his body like lightning.

He _would_ protect Dylan, _and_ his kingdom. If he had to burn the rest of the world to ashes, he would protect her children, in order to protect Dylan, too. His friend, his charge. And he would find a way to earn back her trust, her friendship.

With nearly all the world turned against him, or ready to turn, he couldn't live with her hate.

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_Author's Note:__ and how do we think he'll do with that little mission? Thoughts on the story so far, anyone? Hugs for everybody!_


	13. I Surrender

_**Author's Note:**__ here's the next chapter. It's a bit rushed, but it's the beginning of the month and I owe some chapters, so...yeah. Here it is! Love you guys. Happy fourth of July everybody!_

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**Chapter Thirteen**

**I Surrender**

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When Nuada came back inside, fingers and ears nearly numb with the bitter cold, he stilled as the door swung shut behind him. A soft, terrible sound assailed him as he stood frozen in the entryway.

Weeping. Dylan was weeping.

She'd made hardly any sound the past two days, and now he returned to the torture of her muffled sobs. His heart went still in his chest. Dread flooded his body, the taste of it like mortal blood on the back of his tongue. What now? A nightmare? Had she suffered another terrible nightmare, only to wake alone when he should have been with her? Or had she…had she hurt herself again? The thought galvanized him into savage motion. He raced down the corridor and burst into the den.

At first Nuada didn't see her, and icy fear slithered in his belly like a snake. Then his body took over as the dread flooded his mind, and he walked around the sofa that faced the hearth, until he could see the woman curled into a crying ball on the cushions. Long, dark locks shielded her face from the firelight. Nuada crouched beside the sofa and cleared his throat. The sobs abruptly silenced.

"Dylan?"

"Sorry," she mumbled without looking at him or brushing her hair from her face. "Did I…did I wake you up? I didn't mean to—"

When he laid a hand on her shoulder, she fell silent. Nuada could feel her trembling beneath his touch. Settling his weight more comfortably, the Tuathan prince gently pulled the hair from in front of Dylan's face so that he could see the pale, tear-streaked face. Her lashes were spiky with tears; her eyes glimmered wetly; and her bottom lip quivered, even when she sank her teeth into it to keep it still.

Nuada cleared his throat. "I think you and I need have words, my lady. I have something that needs to be said, and once I have spoken, then I think we shall decide what is to be done. All right?"

After a long silence, Dylan nodded.

"Do you understand what it means if you choose to keep these children?" He asked gently. "If they possess the power to connect with the land, if their magic possesses the strength of the heir, I or my father will have to break that connection. They will be ridiculed for having a mortal mother and you will be ridiculed for being their mother. You will be looked on by the Faerie world as a whore, Dylan. You will be shamed, as will I. You will be in danger throughout your pregnancy and after. The people of my kingdom would be enraged that I acknowledged illegitimate halflings. They would shun you. Despise you. Doesn't that matter to you?"

She closed her eyes. Shook her head. "I can't let that matter, Nuada. I'm sorry if I'm…if I'm embarrassing you or putting you in a bad position. I know you have your obligations to your kingdom. You don't…you don't have to do anything. You don't have to acknowledge our…the babies. I won't be angry if you have to cut ties with me. With us. You don't owe me anything, Your Highness."

"Don't I?" Nuada asked softly.

"Your Highness, I don't expect anything from you. I need…things would be easier if you were with me, but I'm not going to be angry or hate you if you leave. I'll be okay if I have to take care of them on my own. It's okay. If you really can't stand being here, if your obligations mean you have to cut ties, I understand."

He rose to his feet and paced to the fireplace with a sigh. "Dylan…by the Fates, Dylan, must you always play the martyr?" He demanded bitterly. He didn't want her to do that, didn't want her to sacrifice herself for him or for anyone. She'd sacrificed enough already, hadn't she?

There was a silence so long that it began to take on weight, a heaviness that pressed on his shoulders and chest until he could scarcely breathe. Nuada turned to glance at her over his shoulder and saw the hurt in her expression, the wet gleam of tears in her eyes before she dropped her gaze to the floor and stared at her feet. Her fingers scrunched in the silk tunic that fell to cover her knees.

"I disgust you, don't I?" She asked in a voice that was barely a whisper. Nuada's brows furrowed sharply and he took a step toward her. Dylan didn't look up as she added, "You think I'm a whore for letting Eamonn do this to me. That I deserve what happened, since I won't get rid of the babies. You hate me for getting you in trouble again and again. And because I've made the decision to follow my faith, to try and do what I think I have to, what's right…you despise me now. I understand. It's happened before. I've lost my family's respect because I did what's right instead of what's easy. I don't want you to hate me, but there's not much I can do to change that now, is there?"

"Dylan," he rasped, stunned. "Dylan, I don't—"

"It's fine," she whispered. Her chin quivered and two teardrops slipped down her cheeks. "I'd like to be alone now, please."

Nuada took a step forward. She couldn't think such things. He wouldn't _let_ her think such things. "Dylan—"

"I would _really_ like to be alone now," she added, getting to her feet. "Excuse me." Before he could stop her, she scuttled out of the den and down the hall. By the time he'd thought to shake himself and go after her, she was already in the guest bathroom. When he knocked, there was no answer. Only the _skree_ of hot water in the pipes and the rapid-fire retorts of the shower spray striking tile. Feeling as if a merciless, taloned hand clutched at his heart, the prince went into the kitchen to make Dylan something to eat. It was all he could do.

**.**

When Dylan came back into the den, hair still damp and in a black tunic, she found a plate of sandwiches on the sofa and a cup of milk—still cold—on the small table where one of the den's lamps sat. The sight of the homey little sandwiches and milk made Dylan stop in her tracks, unable to do anything but stare at the offering for a long moment before she suddenly sank to the soft carpet, covered her face with her hands, and began to cry. She couldn't have said why she was crying. Why the plate of food made her eyes sting and her chest feel so tight. She only knew she couldn't seem to stop the sobs tearing through her body.

Sometime later, gentle arms came around her. In a distant part of her mind, it surprised her that she didn't jump, didn't scream, wasn't afraid. She merely sagged into those arms, unable to sit up on her own anymore, and cried into Nuada's shirt while he stroked her hair.

"Don't cry, Dylan," he murmured. She simply buried her face deeper into his shirt, soaking up the evergreen scent of him. He was being kind to her; wasn't that enough? Wasn't it enough that, even if he thought she was a whore, even if she disgusted him, honor compelled him to treat her well? But it wasn't enough, and she knew it. The crushing weight of the knowledge of his contempt threatened to strangle her even as Nuada murmured, "Don't cry. You're safe now. Pray, do not weep."

She didn't mean to say it, didn't mean to say anything, but the words spilled from her lips without permission. "Please, Nuada…please, don't hate me. Please don't hate me. I can't stand it, please don't hate me."

"Never," he whispered. "Never. Dylan, how could you think it? If I have given you reason to fear such a thing, I am sorry. I could never hate you. Never. Shhh, Dylan. Hush, _mo duinne_. Hush now." There was a few moments of silence as Dylan's sobs quieted and she focused on the way he cradled her, the strength of his arms and the solid wall of his chest, the sound of his heartbeat under her cheek. Here, at least, was safety, if not peace. Here, for this moment in time, was protection. At last Nuada said, "Dylan…do you truly not care about the consequences?"

It took her a couple tries to speak past the ghosts of her sobs, but she finally managed at reply, "I care. I just can't let it stop me from doing what's right."

"Is it right to condemn yourself, condemn me, to a life of indentured servitude when we didn't choose to come together? When we didn't choose to conceive a child? Do you truly believe that is the right thing?"

Her hand trembled when she swiped at her tears. At least he wasn't yelling at her. He was speaking kindly, gently, and that was something, wasn't it? "I'm not condemning you to anything, Your Highness. You have no obligation to me. But I've explained why I have to do this. You're not going to change my mind."

"If you do this, you trap me just as surely as you trap yourself. You owe those…things…nothing, Dylan. Will you not reconsider?" He asked softly, coaxingly. Mute with misery, she shook her head. Nuada sighed. "Very well." In a voice thick with false joviality, he added, "Shackles it is, then."

She jerked away from him, wrenching out of his hold and scrambling to her feet. "Shackles?"

"Dylan, I only meant—"

"I know what you meant," she said softly. She moved to the sofa and sank down, careful of the plate of sandwiches. "I suppose I should offer you the choice," she added, staring at a point a little ways beyond him. Her throat was tight, her eyes prickling with fresh tears demanding to be shed. "Is that what's bothering you so much about this? That you have no choice? Because you can choose, Nuada. You can choose to stay with me, with us…you can choose to walk away and forget all about what happened here…or you can kill me."

He jolted. "What?"

Smiling felt like it would crack her face in half, but she managed to dredge up a mockery of a smile for him. "It would solve all of our problems, wouldn't it? I can die without the guilt of knowing I've killed myself and the babies. You can forget all about me."

"I don't want to forget you." He shook his head, obviously and utterly baffled. "Dylan, where is this coming from?"

She sighed. "I don't know. I don't even know. But I don't want you here if you don't want to be here, Nuada. Do you think I can stand living in this place, this horrible nightmare place, while you're stuck trapped here because you feel obligated to me? And all the while you're loathing me, disgusted by my choices—"

"I'm trying to protect you, Dylan."

"From what?" She demanded, bewildered.

He paced the length of the den before stopping in front of her and pinning her with his topaz eyes. "From throwing your life away because you—"

Dylan straightened abruptly. "I'm _not_ throwing my life away!"

Nuada shoved his hands through his hair and then dragged them over his face with a groan. "Then what do you call this?"

"I'm trying to make something good out of something terrible. Can't you understand that?" Propping her elbows on her knees, she laced her fingers together and pressed them against her lips. He noticed her toes scrunching in her simple black socks. "Nuada, you seem to think that I'm doing this because I'm being forced into it or something. I'm not. I have chosen to follow my faith. I'm not afraid that God is going to punish me if I do something else. That's not what this is about."

For some reason it seemed he couldn't look at her. Instead he focused on the fire, which was slowly beginning to die. How often would they argue in this room, before this hearth? How often would he stand there while she vainly sought to defend herself? Dylan didn't know. How long would Nuada put up with her before he simply became fed up and left? She didn't know that either.

"Follow your faith?" Nuada demanded in a voice thick with what stung like contempt. Dylan fought against flinching. "And where is your devotion to your Christian God? I haven't seen you read your Scriptures nor heard a prayer pass your lips since I've come here. It seems as if you've forsaken the Star Kindler as surely as He has forsaken you."

"God doesn't forsake His children," she murmured, trying to believe it herself. She'd learned many things over the years; one of them was that if you couldn't find the faith, to act as if you could, and the faith would follow if you were only patient. The mortal woman had to hope that was how it worked out this time.

"So He's doing this to you on purpose, then?" Nuada demanded, jarring her thoughts.

"You're looking at it in the wrong way," she protested. "This is…it's a test. One I agreed to undergo in order to prove myself to Him. I'm not going to fail it."

He scoffed. "I agreed to no such test."

Biting back a sigh, Dylan replied, "We've talked about this before. You know my beliefs."

When he looked at her, there was something that might have been pity in his gaze. Pity mingled with exasperation. She didn't want to see either one. But she said nothing, simply waited until her prince asked in a low, earnest voice, "_Are_ they your beliefs? Are they still?"

The words stung like a whip. "You're being hurtful," she whispered reproachfully. "Look, I know you're angry with me. I know that you—"

"Don't tell me that you know," her prince said coldly, and this time she couldn't stop from flinching at his tone. "Do not say such things, because you have made it very clear, my lady, that you don't know me as well as you think you do. Hatred and disgust are the furthest things from what I feel for you. You are brave, honorable." He shook his head almost disbelievingly. "Your courage humbles me. You have sacrificed for years for my people." Stalking toward her, he reached out and gripped her shoulders. "I would rather suffer alone at _his_ hands for another fortnight than see you sacrifice for me now, or for anyone else." He gave her the tiniest shake. "You have given _enough_, Dylan. Can't you see that? What more can be asked of you?"

"Nuada, I have to have faith that this is what's meant to be, that there's a purpose in it. I have to believe in the promises my God has made me—that if I endure, and endure it well, that all my pain and all my sorrow will be made up…and so will yours. I have to believe that. I've told you that. Please…" Desperately she searched his features, her eyes roving over his face for some flicker, some sign that he was beginning to soften. "Please, can't you accept that? Can't you hold onto that one piece of hope? Can't you let me hold onto it?"

For a long while he stared at her, and she dared to feel a faint spark of hope in her heart. Then he closed his eyes, releasing his grip on her, and stepped back, shaking his head. Dylan felt her heart plummet into her stomach.

"I'm not sure that I can," Nuada said softly. After a moment, he looked back at her. In a voice empty of all emotion, he added, "Come now. You should eat something." He gestured to the plate of sandwiches, then offered a short bow. "Good night, my lady."

She began to eat, more to please him than because she was hungry—it seemed the only thing she _could_ do that would please him—and somehow, despite the crushing grief in her chest, Dylan managed to wait until Nuada had shut the den door behind him before letting the tears fall once again.

**.**

Two days passed in silence. Nuada avoided the den, leaving Dylan to her own devices, only going in to leave her meals. She did not seek him out. He stood sentry outside the den while she slept, and there were times when nightmares throttled her awake…but he could not bear to go to her, to comfort her. Not when the anger and the lust twined together in his belly like thorns until they threatened to cut him open. He didn't understand her. Didn't understand himself. There was something savage in him, desperate to get out, but he feared allowing it free reign, feared what it might seduce him into attempting. It was violence and pain and hope all knotted together and it mocked his helplessness.

It was three nights since his last argument—his last conversation—with Dylan when he realized he could bear it no longer. He'd tried to convince her to give her heart some peace, tried to make her understand that on this path laid only heartache and grief…but nothing he'd said had the power to move her. She'd chosen a path that would wring misery and despair from her heart for the rest of life. Could he do anything other than be there for her when she suffered through it all?

She sat by the fire, the flickering flames dancing golden and sienna across her scarred face, when he entered the den. She didn't look at him; that small social cut felt as if he'd been slapped. Swallowing, dragging his honor about him like icy walls, he approached Dylan. Stopping only a pace away, he gazed down at her in silence.

When had she become beautiful? Her scars like tiger stripes of silver, ivory, and pale rose were mellowed by the firelight. Her eyes were dark from the shadows, indigo and misty gray. Her face, though…it had become so thin. Grief had shaved away any remaining youthfulness, any childlike innocence, leaving her as a carven alabaster statue—vaguely remote, ethereal as moonlight. He wanted to hold Dylan, comfort her. Wanted to lift her up and swathe her in the warmth of his shirt like a kitten. It was a physical ache in his chest, this drive to do _something_ for her.

That pain, as well as the tangle of emotions in his chest, made him speak more tersely than he intended when he said, "Very well, my lady. You have won. I concede this matter to you."

He didn't expect her to say anything, so she surprised him by replying softly, without looking at him, "It wasn't a battle, Your Highness. I would never seek to be your enemy. I'm sorry that my honor conflicts with what you so plainly desire. I didn't want this to happen."

Frustration pried the words from him when he said, "Dylan, I only desire your happiness. I only want what is best for you. For both of us."

"Please don't say that," she whispered.

Nuada took an involuntary step back. _Don't say that…why not? Because she doesn't believe me?_ But he didn't ask. He merely offered her a truncated bow and said, "As you wish, my lady. I have come only to inform you that I will no longer seek to sway your mind from your course. I see it's futile. Whatever you wish of me, whatever you require for your…plans…I will see it done. You may have no reason to trust me, but I give you my word of honor that I will support you in this as you've requested."

"I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do," Dylan said. He raised an eyebrow.

"Indeed? That was not my impression." He felt like a monster when she ducked her head, barely muffling a whimper as tears welled up in her eyes. Shades, he hadn't meant to snap at her. His temper was constantly fraying under the sharp edge of his own helplessness in the face of the impossible situation. "Forgive me, milady."

Dylan shook her head. Nuada stiffened. No forgiveness, then. Well, he didn't deserve it anyway, he supposed.

"You don't have to stay if you don't want to," Dylan whispered. "I won't force you."

"I will obey the dictates of my honor."

"You don't owe me anything."

"We have already established that this isn't true—" He began, but was interrupted when Dylan squeezed her eyes shut and made a sharp sound that might have been anger, fear, or grief.

Sucking in a breath that whistled between her clenched teeth, she snapped, "If you don't want to be here, then just go!"

He stared at her in silence for a long moment, then nodded. "As you wish. Good night." With a final quick bow, he walked out of the room.

The door clicked shut behind him and he nearly staggered. His hand shot out and he leaned heavily against the wall, feeling his legs shake. There. He'd said it. He'd surrendered to her completely; not only that, he'd made certain she knew it. She despised him for opposing her in this matter, but if she cared for these unborn ones as much as she seemed to, after her anger had had time to cool she wouldn't hesitate to use him as a tool in their protection. And that was as it should be—she _was_ their mother. Or at least thought of herself that way.

He'd decided to do what was necessary to protect her, to help her heal, but he'd wanted to take some time to talk to her as well, to see if perhaps in the rush of the discovery and the emotional upheaval that followed, she was acting rashly. Once they discussed the situation, perhaps she might see things differently—so Nuada had thought. Yes, he'd touched the essence of the unborn babies growing in Dylan's body. Yes, they were of his blood. But the Elven prince wanted, first and foremost, what was best for Dylan. His debt was to her, not to her children. If she needed them to mend her broken heart and fragile sanity, he would ensure she had them, because _she_ needed them, not for their own sake. He'd hoped it wouldn't come to that, but he'd been a fool. Her determination to uphold honor and do the right thing, so foreign to every other child of Adam in this gods' forsaken world, had always been something he admired in Dylan.

_If you don't want to be here, then just go!_ Her dismissal echoed in his skull until he thought he could bear it no longer. Somehow he made it outside, into the bitter cold. The sharp slap of the wind, icy against his flushed cheeks, helped clear his head. Leaning against the door, he raised a hand and beckoned to the shadows. Out from the tenebrous night came Mr. Wink, concerned etched into every craggy feature of the troll's face.

"Are you well, my prince?" The troll rumbled.

Nuada scoffed lightly, downplaying the turmoil that had taken residence within him. "As well as can be expected, given the circumstances. I need a message sent to my father. A request for an audience. I will write to him myself to explain the reasons for this audience but I need to make preparations first. Tell him I will not be coming alone; I will have one other with me. A princess."

Wink raised an eyebrow. "A…princess, Your Highness?"

The prince closed his eyes. This was what was necessary. Honor and loyalty demanded it of him. He had much he owed Dylan, and he _would_ repay the debt, even if he choked on the bitterness of what it had cost them both for the rest of his life. "Yes, a princess. I also need you to deliver a discreet message to Themba—I'll have need of him in the next few days. And the leader of the Star Kindler's congregation in the castle—what is his name? Ah, yes, Lord Malcolm McTavish—I'll need him as well, in perhaps a week. You must take care when you go to Findias, my friend, that you are _not_ followed back here."

"Of course, Sire, but…Nuada…what are you planning to do?"

He let out the breath he hadn't been aware of holding. Well Wink might ask. Well anyone might ask. It was a foolish thing, anyway, to make such preparations without Dylan's consent, but…but though Dylan hated him yet, he knew that his offer would be accepted. They'd spoken often enough about the High King's edicts to know what she would do now.

"I mean to do the honorable thing," Nuada said. "Go, my friend, and take care."

**.**

As before, when Nuada entered the house, he was confronted by the sound of Dylan's soft weeping. It gnawed at his guts the moment the sound touched his ears. What now? What had happened to make her cry this time? Was it simply being with child? He'd heard that expectant mothers were often known to cry over the littlest things. Their husbands were expected to pet and cosset and soothe them as necessary, even if the tears had no reasonable source. Well, after everything that had happened over the last weeks, Dylan certainly had enough reason to cry.

He found her in the den, as expected. He hadn't expected the scene that greeted him when he opened the door, however.

Dylan sat on the floor in front of the lit fireplace, knees drawn up to her chest, her hair a dark curtain all around her head, crying bitterly. She rocked herself back and forth, keening and weeping. Her fingers were practically bloodless where they pressed against her legs.

Firelight turned the silver blade of the Elven warrior's dirk red as human blood where it lay on the hearthstones, within easy reach of the sobbing mortal. Nuada took a step forward. What had happened? Why was his dirk there? Did she intend to…knowing that she was killing her babies as well as herself, did she truly intend to drag that cruel blade across her wrists and end her life?

"Nuada," Dylan whimpered. His heart jerked in his chest. How long had she known he was there? He opened his mouth to answer her, to demand to know what she thought she was doing, when she sobbed, "Nuada, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, please come back. Please come back, please." The harrowing sobs tore through her with brutal force as she continued to plead in a trembling voice, "I'm so, so sorry. I'm sorry. Don't go. Don't go. Don't leave me alone. I don't want to be alone. I'm scared, I'm so scared, I can't do this alone. Please…"

Then she lifted her head to reveal the tears spilling down her cheeks, her eyes wet and frightened. But she didn't look toward him. Her eyes found the ceiling, and her mouth trembled, and she whispered, "Heavenly Father…he's gone. He left me. I told him to leave and he left. I…I…I can't do this without him. I don't know what to do."

The prince's back hit the wall of the den and he sank to the carpet, relief and shame and hope and anguish twisting inside him into a rope that threatened to strangle him. She was praying. Thank the Fates, she was praying. She hadn't prayed aloud, as far as he knew, since the attack. Now she continued to rock back and forth, back and forth, hugging her knees while offering up her heart to the Star Kindler.

"I'm sorry I haven't been praying or reading my Scriptures, I'm sorry I've been so angry, I'm sorry. I'll try to do better. I will. I will, I promise, but…but I don't know if I can handle this on my own. I know that Thou can do anything, I _know_, but I'm so scared. I'm just so scared. I _need_ Nuada, Heavenly Father. I need him. And he left because he hates me. He thinks I'm a whore because I want to keep the babies, because I wanted them even if they were Eamonn's. He's so angry and disappointed and he thinks I'm a whore and we've been arguing all the time and I told him to go so he left, I looked everywhere but he was gone, he left me alone. Please, I'll do anything, but bring him back. Make him forgive me. Please, please, I need him back. I can't do this without him. Please bring him back."

She began to sob harder, the words slurring and scrunching together as she pleaded with her God to bring the prince back. Back? She thought he'd abandoned her? Why? But he knew; he'd spent a great deal of time out there in the cold and the snow over the last several days, thinking and struggling and searching the tattered remnants of his soul. And because of that, because they'd quarreled off and on over the last days, now she believed he thought her a whore? For wanting her babes, for wanting to keep the one supposedly good thing she'd received from this horror?

How had she known Nuada was gone? _I looked everywhere_…Dylan never went anywhere in the cottage anymore except the den, living room, kitchen, and guest bathroom, and she never went alone. Always her trips from the den meshed with whatever the Elf was doing so that she could see him at all times. Had she searched for him? Most likely. Had she ventured into the…into the master bedroom? Nuada mentally skewered himself at the thought that he'd frightened her so badly that she'd dared to go into the seat of her past tortures. Had she flashed back to the terrible things Eamonn had done to her there?

Had Dylan remembered any of the times Nuada had made love to her there?

He instantly ripped the thought to shreds. How dare he ask such a thing, even in the privacy of his mind? He hadn't made love to her. He'd raped her. He'd pinned her to the mattress with his weight against her body, spread her thighs, and taken her in a frantic haze of lust. That wasn't lovemaking. It was an abomination, an obscenity.

His thoughts were torn from self-castigation when Dylan slumped to the floor and curled into a ball on the rug, nearly choking on her sobs. Her hands covered her face as she wept. Nuada could bear no more.

"Dylan," he rasped, voice husky with the strain of swallowing his words of self-loathing. That wasn't what she needed now. She didn't need to hear his self-recriminations or feel the lash of his rage. Instead, he said, "Dylan, it's all right. Don't cry." It was nothing close to being all right, and she had every right to cry, but he couldn't bear the sight of her tears. Somehow the prince managed to get to his feet and take a step forward, and before he could take a second step, Dylan had scrabbled to her feet and flung herself into his arms, sobbing so that her tears soaked his shirt. He stroked her hair, murmuring softly, "Do not weep. Do not weep, little one. I would never abandon you. How could you think it? Shhh, little one."

Ah, gods, she smelled of lilacs. The sweet scent and the exhausted warmth of her filled his senses. Knowing it was time to lay everything out for her, surrender utterly, Nuada said, "Dylan, if this is truly what you want, then I am with you. I'm sorry that I have been so cold, so angry. I…this is difficult for me, little one, as it is for you. I want so much to help you and I cannot. It seems that I can do nothing for you. I'm not…I must do something, Dylan. Anything you ask of me, it is done. You have made your choice. I will support it. I'm sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. Don't cry. Please don't cry."

"I don't want to force you," she sobbed. "I don't want you to hate me."

"Think nothing of that," he replied soothingly. "I could never hate you, I've told you, never. And I have only been resisting this because I don't want you to feel forced into anything. I want you so much to be happy. To feel safe, to heal. I don't want you to suffer anymore. But if this is what you need, then this is what we shall do."

Sniffling, she pulled back and wiped her eyes. "We?" She quavered, breaking his heart all over again.

Nuada met her eyes and then slowly sank to his knees before her, placing his hands on her hips and spanning his fingers across her lower belly. "Out of torment comes beauty," he whispered. "Out of darkness comes light." Nuada stroked a soft line across her belly from one hip to the other, then he slid his hands around to cradle her hips and laid his cheek against the smooth, silk-shrouded curve of her belly. Whispered hoarsely, "There is so much I want to say, so much I wish I could explain…but my heart is too full for words. Yes, Dylan—_we_ will do this."

Cautiously, Dylan lifted her hands and let one fall to his shoulder. The other rested lightly against the back of Nuada's head, her fingers sliding over the spidersilk strands of his hair. He stiffened for a split-second before all the tension eased from his body. He sighed. They stayed that way for several long moments, in silent healing communion with each other. But finally Nuada had to break that sweet, sacred silence.

"Dylan," he murmured. "There is one thing."

Silence, and then she asked tentatively, "What is it?"

"In order to better protect you…and the children…I have to end my exile. We have to go to Findias, the capital of Bethmoora."

"Okay," she whispered reluctantly. Nuada's fingers tightened fractionally at her hips, because not only was there more to that simple statement, but he knew she wouldn't be happy about it. "What else?"

"To afford you and the children the most protection, I have to give you legitimacy. We…we need to wed, Dylan. For the children's sake, if nothing else."

Somehow he felt the cold shock through her entire body. She managed to whisper, "Wed?"

Nuada lifted his head to lock eyes with her. He knew his gaze was earnest when he replied, "You will be protected when we marry, because you will be my wife, and a princess. Our children will be protected by both your title and mine, as well as their own. Do you see? It will allow you the freedom to be with them, to have full authority in their upbringing. It is for _their_ sake, Dylan."

Their eyes remained locked as he watched Dylan processed what he was telling her. He knew exactly what she was thinking: the easiest, safest way to be with her children—and for him to be with them as well—was to marry him. They'd spoken hypothetically of similar situations. There was no sin in marrying Nuada for those reasons. She was supposed to strive for marriage in the Star Kindler's temple…but with a child weighed in the balance, the child came first.

Which meant, really, that there was no question about what her decision would be; he'd known that.

"So you're asking me to marry you?"

Nuada hesitated for a fraction of a second, then said, "I am. Dylan Myers, will you be my wife?"

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_**Author's Note**: the thing about Nuada real quick is that there is no way he's just going to be okay with what's going on. He's got a lot he's dealing with (or refusing to deal with, rather) and it's causing a lot of friction. So to be realistic (and respectful of the sort of trauma they've gone through) certain things are going to have to progress in a certain way. So I hope you enjoyed this chap and I hope Nuada's not being a douche._


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